The Assembly question that shocked Claudia Karvan

Claudia Karvan likens her experience on this week’s The Assembly to going to the “journalist Olympics”.

“It was fun to be there and jump through hoops,” the 53-year-old Bump star tells TV WEEK.

What Claudia wasn’t prepared for was the sheer variety and breadth of astute questions she faced from the room of autistic journalism students.

“It was really scattershot,” Claudia says of the questions in this week’s episode. “It was fantastically destabilising because you just didn’t know what the angle was going to be from the next journalist.

“It just meant you had to really stay focused and be present, be honest, be open.”

Over the course of the episode, Claudia goes from answering a question about her deleted scene in a Star Wars movie to what she looks for in a partner.

“Sometimes you’d be thrown a question where you’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t even know. It’s so personal,’” she says. “They did come out of the gate with that question and I gave a pretty swift response. It wasn’t specific, it was broad.”

Claudia even finds herself talking about her Paperback Hero co-star Hugh Jackman, which has everyone in the room roaring with laughter.

“Oh, no!” Claudia exclaims. “I hope Hugh isn’t offended by that.”

Elsewhere, Claudia mulls over questions about recreational drug use and how motherhood has informed her career choices.

She also faces a question about a famously harrowing episode of her show Love My Way, in which her character’s young daughter dies.

“I think I was in the perfect headspace to be able to perform that, looking back on it now, because I had a healthy three-year-old girl at home,” Claudia says.

“So, parenthood and motherhood were very fresh and the hormones were flowing.”

Later in The Assembly, Claudia even gets an opportunity to show off her dance moves.

“Oh, that’s probably going to be humiliating,” she laughs.

The Assembly airs Sunday 7.30pm on ABC and ABC iview.