PLAY TELEVISION DENTON BETTER THAN EVER

seven months after undergoing major heart surgery, Andrew Denton insists he is raring to go.

Simply titled Interview, his new chat show allows Denton to do what he does best and probe a different guest each week. Since undergoing bypass surgery for heart disease last August, the seasoned interviewer says he feels better than ever.

“About six or seven months ago ( coproducer) Jon ( Casimir) said to me, ‘ Are you sure you’re going to be well enough to come back?’ and I said ‘ I’m actually going to be better than well’,” Denton said. The surgery came as a surprise, but Denton said the outcome was a complete success.

“As bad news goes it was the best news I could have had because, essentially, I’m largely heart attack- proof for 10 or 15 years. It was really good,” he said.

It’s been a decade since the last episode of Denton’s popular ABC interview show Enough Rope went to air, and five years since his ill- fated word- game Randling aired. The challenge in this one- on- one format, he says, is to try to get his guests to go off script. “One of the best answers you can get to a question is silence,” Denton said. “I remember once asking Matt Damon a really simple question which was ‘ are you a good actor?’ and he was silent for about 10 seconds and I knew, from the minute he went silent, that whatever he said after that was going to be a real answer. What I’m looking for, and the greatest moments on television, are moments of honesty.”