Lisa Millar is radiating happiness. She can’t wipe the smile off her face as she tells TV WEEK about the first time she went to the Logie Awards, back in 2001, when she was a Stateline presenter in Queensland.
“I’m getting out of the limo and I’m feeling great,” she remembers. “I’m on the red carpet, and there’s a roar of noise. It’s like, ‘Wow!’ And then this photographer is in front of me, bending down, and he says, ‘Get out of the way, you nobody!’ And behind me was the entire cast of Home And Away! And I laughed because I was a nobody. It was hilarious.
“To now think I’m going to be on the red carpet as a Gold Logie nominee… how wild is that! Who saw this coming?”
It’s not just Lisa’s professional life that’s bringing her joy. The 56-year-old Back Roads presenter and Muster Dogs narrator has also found joy in her private life, with pilot Simon Carless.
“I’m in this awesome personal relationship with an old friend of mine,” she reveals. “We hooked up 19 months ago – we still count the months. We’re so in love. It’s really wonderful. So I feel like everything about my life has come together in a really magical way.”
A lot has changed for Lisa just in the past year. She’s gone from co-hosting News Breakfast “and getting glammed up at four o’clock every morning in the makeup chair” to travelling the back roads of Australia and meeting a lot of puppies.
“The day that they called me to confirm that I was going to be the [Gold Logie] nominee, I was in the middle of South Australia, being jumped on by 12 kelpie puppies, who were the offspring of the winner of season three of Muster Dogs,” she says. “It just felt quite apt that that’s where I was.”
Lisa grew up in rural Queensland, in Kilkivan and Gympie. With her father Clarrie a politician, the TV was always turned to the ABC at 7pm for the news. But young Lisa was well aware of the Logies.
“I used to pinch the TV WEEK magazines from my neighbours when they’d finished with it because Mum and Dad wouldn’t buy magazines,” she remembers with a laugh.
After starting her journalism career at The Gympie Times, Lisa joined the ABC In 1993, and eight years later, took on her first posting as a foreign correspondent. Based first in Washington and later in London, the job “absolutely” took over her life.
“I thrived on it, I loved it, I was challenged by it, it nearly broke me, but it was an incredible experience,” she says. “The [news stories] that stick in my mind, of course, are the Sandy Hook school shooting in the US, when 20 young kids died, and then all the terrorist attacks that I covered in Europe when I was there. It was pretty full on… which makes this life even more wonderful for me.
“I just think I’ve been blessed. That word sounds a bit naff when it comes out of my mouth but it’s like, how do I describe going from things where I’d be sobbing over stories that I’m doing to now I can’t stop laughing and enjoying it all?”
When Lisa returned to Australia after finishing up in London, she took on a role that put her directly in the public eye: co-host of News Breakfast, alongside Michael Rowland. She was in the job for five years.
“It was a rollercoaster ride, News Breakfast,” Lisa admits. “I feel like I’m still processing that whole period. There were massive highs and a lot of lows. And I think coming off being a foreign correspondent, where I wasn’t the story, to then become the story was not something I felt super-comfortable with as a journalist.
“But I don’t want to dwell on that because most of the time was highs and laughs.”
Leaving News Breakfast in August last year to travel the country for Back Roads was “super important” to Lisa. The girl from Kilkivan still feels a strong connection to regional Australia.
“Every time I’m out there filming for Muster Dogs or Back Roads and I’m looking at a sunrise or a sunset, or listening to the birds and the silence of this incredible country, I think, ‘I wish more people could get out here and appreciate what we’ve got,’” she says. “And if they can’t, I can at least bring it to them on the telly.”
After a brilliant career spanning almost four decades, Lisa still has more she wants to do. She’s planning to put on a cabaret show for her 60th birthday, roping in some of her “really talented friends”, including piano-playing TV presenter Leigh Sales, singer Rob Mills and actress Virginia Gay – not that she’s told Rob or Virginia about it yet.
“Leigh knows about it. She’s my best friend, so she has to agree. Millsy, I’m sure he will because he’s such a good bloke. Virginia Gay, I’ll have to check her calendar.”
Right now, Lisa just wants to enjoy the experience of being a Gold Logie nominee.
“I’m super stoked,” she says. “This may only happen once in my life and I’m going to revel in it.”
She’s looking forward to walking the Logies red carpet on August 3 with Simon by her side.
“Simon’s been a friend for a long time,” she explains. “It was a beautiful kind of sliding doors moment of us just looking at each other in a different way and falling in love. I’m 56 years old. Who thought I was going to find the love of my life at this age?
“I’ve never been happier, both professionally and personally. It’s awesome.”
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