Helping hand returns
No stranger to championing underdogs, Jay Laga’aia once again shines a light on Australia’s low levels of adult literacy and numeracy as the host of the uplifting SBS series Lost For Words, writes Siobhan Duck
YOU would think that being in Star Wars would make Jay Laga’aia the coolest dad in Australia. But when the entertainer found himself starring as Captain Typho – alongside
Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Samuel Jackson and his close friend Temuera Morrison – his eight children weren’t as impressed as you’d imagine.
In fairness, they’d grown up watching Laga‘aia wowing audiences on stage and screen. So, hearing that their dad was spending his workday doing battle with Jedis likely seemed just another day in the office.
“It impressed other adults more [than the kids]. Especially the men in my peer group,” Laga’aia laughs of filming the Star Wars prequels, before adding that when he organised a set visit for his son’s sport team, he was inundated with parents offering to help “supervise” the excursion.
“I ended up having more volunteers than kids. People were like, ‘Can my brother-in-law come as well? He’s in Perth but he’s willing to fly down to supervise’.”
Although he was born in New Zealand, Laga’aia has become something of a fixture on Australian TV. He has acted in dramas such as Water Rats, All Saints and Home and Away, done stints on reality TV in both Celebrity Big Brother and I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, and entertained youngsters on
Play School. He’s also a successful musician and author.
“I’ve got a lot of strings to my bow,” he says.
“I don’t ask myself if I can write a book, or record an album, I just do it. Why? Because I have eight kids!”
And it’s those kids – despite all he has done his 40-year career
– that he considers his greatest achievement. Not because of what they do or how much they themselves achieve, Laga’aia is simply proud they are good people with good manners.
All of his kids are forging their own paths and interests but Laga‘aia’s son, 23-year-old Iosefa, is now following in his father’s footsteps and treading the boards in Hamilton.
Interestingly, before Iosefa was cast, Laga’aia was also in talks to star in the award-winning musical as George Washington. He ultimately opted out because he recognised that Iosefa shouldn’t be on tour in his first big musical with his dad.
“Did I want my child to be a performer? No!” Laga’aia reflects.
“The pandemic proved that we are ghosts as far as the government is concerned. This industry is hard because you’re not tall enough, or you are too tall. You are not short
enough, or white enough or black enough.”
While times are changing, Laga’aia says it’s been an even harder road to success for him because of his ethnicity. And that’s why over the years he has become both a pioneer and an advocate for diversity on screen.
“Someone told me that I was the first Polynesian cast in a major Australian drama [Water Rats] and that’s a really cool [achievement] and it is changing,” he says.
“But you turn on the television and you’ll see the talk shows are all still dominated by white people. Radio is dominated by all white people. You may have a late-night show with Indira Naidoo but before that its white people.
Except on children’s TV, it’s a rainbow. It’s so diverse.”
Laga’aia says talent shows are also a source of frustration because, he felt, talented singers of Islander backgrounds were often passed over for more marketable
Caucasian performers.
“And you’ve got Idol coming back with Kyle Sandilands!” he says.
“It’s so sad. We’re still stuck in that format where you have to have an antagonist. He has no reason to be there except that he has the no. 1 radio show, and they want him to play this stuff on his show.
But he has no right to be there.
“And then the rest of the panel is all white and the hosts are all white. And then they will have all the colours of the rainbow as contestants.”
Laga’aia’s passion for championing underdogs is perhaps what makes him the perfect host for the SBS series Lost For Words, which shines a light on the low levels of adult literacy and numeracy in Australia.
A staggering 43 per cent of Australian adults are unable to read a text message, navigate public transport or write a letter due to literacy problems.
Even more people are challenged by everyday numeracy and struggle to follow recipes or count change.
Lost For Words reveals reasons why millions of people are falling through the cracks of the education system and reduces the stigma associated with being illiterate or innumerate.
The three-part series sees nine brave adults attempting to overcome lifelong struggles with reading, writing and maths with help from Laga’aia and a group of expert teachers.
Having struggled with maths himself in the past, Laga’aia understands a little of what the participants feel.
“Here’s my life hack,” he laughs. “When you lack some skills like numeracy or literacy it helps to marry a maths and English teacher.”
As such, Laga’aia jokes that his kids don’t even look in his direction when they need help with their schoolwork, and they go straight to his wife, who is a deputy school principal.
“I think the issue is that school is a treadmill and even the best students can fall off that treadmill,” he says.
“And a great example of that is me. You know, I’m terrible at maths, and I can pinpoint the time when I lost interest in maths.
“It was when they were teaching the times tables. I get asthma, and I had a very bad asthma attack, and I was away from school for a week.
“When I came back, they were still on to the seven times tables, and everybody was memorising it.
“But unless you’re a child that said, ‘Excuse me, miss, can you give me the work that I missed?’ They’re not going to stop for you.”
Laga’aia is filled with admiration for the people on the show who had been brave enough to admit they had a problem on a national stage.
“It’s this silent shame that people walk around with,” he says.
“But what they don’t seem to understand, and what we hope that first season did, was to show them that it’s not a disease, it is curable. You just have to stick at it.”
I THINK THE ISSUE IS THAT SCHOOL IS A TREADMILL AND EVEN THE BEST STUDENTS CAN FALL OFF THAT TREADMILL
■ Lost For Words, 7.30pm, Wednesday, SBS and streaming, SBS on Demand