CARRYING ON
The Project’s Carrie Bickmore is looking forward to a big year at work and with her passion projects.
Carrie Bickmore hasn’t quite shaken off that sun-and-salt-water vibe when she catches up with WHO in late January, following an extended seaside holiday with her partner, Chris Walker, and children Oliver, 10, and Evie, 2. “We just had a huge break together over summer and it is the longest time off over summer I have had in years,” says The Project co-host. “We just wound right down. I feel like, as a family, we are refreshed for the year.”
That’s just as well since Bickmore, 37, is bursting with big plans for 2018 on work, charity and family fronts. Days after chatting to WHO, former Today co-presenter Lisa Wilkinson made her debut on The Project and Bickmore couldn’t be more delighted with her new colleague. Wilkinson, 58, is “the shot in the arm our show needed,” she says. “I couldn’t be more excited to be working with her. We text, we call and we’re going to make a great team.”
Bickmore is convinced Wilkinson’s addition to The Project line-up has come at the perfect time for the show, now in its ninth year. “It’s good when someone big joins the show. It revives it and changes it. You need that on a show that is on every night.”
It’s with her beloved charity Beanies 4 Brain Cancer where Bickmore is hoping to make new headlines. She’s excited about a major new deal for the charity and with federal government funding for brain cancer announced to the tune of $100 million she believes 2018 could pave a new way forward in dealing with the disease. “This year we’re going big time and there’s so much to do,” says the TV star, who has been involved in the fight for 16 years; her husband Greg Lange died of the disease in 2010. Adelaide-born, Melbourne-based Bickmore, a director of Beanies 4 Brain Cancer, is soon to announce the support of a major clothing-store partner that will sell the beanies. In previous years the campaign has raised $1.2 million. This year Bickmore has set a $5 million target (at press time $4.5m had been raised). “That [government support] has brought such momentum and put a spotlight on the disease. There is an entire team coming at it from different
“This year we’re going big time, and there’s so much to do”
directions and I have never seen such momentum as we are seeing right now. It’s the time for change.”
According to Bickmore, the government plans to halve the mortality rate from brain cancer within the next decade. Approximately 1,600 brain cancers will be diagnosed this year in Australia. “It’s just so high—too high … I just want this year to make such a difference,” adds Bickmore, who put the charity in the national spotlight when she donned a beanie to accept the 2015 Gold Logie, and shared her personal story from the stage. “Being willing to be that open, honest and vulnerable was a scary move for me,” Bickmore recalls. “But after I made that speech, I was glad I was brave enough to do that as it felt like a turning point for me. I had the opportunity and the voice to try to make the change and make a difference.”
But with the quest to make a difference comes a life in the spotlight, and recent years have taught her valuable lessons about the need for a thick skin. “That stuff is just noise and I have had to learn to ignore it, because if I took it all on board I would be living on a constant roller-coaster,” Bickmore says. “Some
of the stuff I have read about me is just laughable. It’s amazing how much rubbish can be published that’s not embedded in truth.”
The expanded Project team—with Carrie on the desk four nights a week, and Wilkinson three—also frees up her schedule to allow more room for her weekday radio show with comedian Tommy Little on the Hit Network. The show so revived her love for radio—the medium that launched her career early last decade—that it’s given her pause for thought about her future. Asked if the experience made her consider giving up TV Bickmore is candid: “I have in the past six months especially thought about that, but I like them both [TV and radio]. Radio is where I started and it’s like being home but I love [ Project co-hosts] Waleed [Aly] and Pete [Helliar] and I don’t want to give that up. I also want to work with Lisa, as it will be great to have another woman on the panel. I just like having my fingers in a couple of different media pies.”
Bickmore, who graduated from Perth’s Curtin University in 2000, says her old college has invited her back a number of times to address graduating students. She feels this year, in the wake of the #Metoo campaign and awareness about harassment in the workplace, might be the time to do it. “I’ve had a really good journey through media and I am lucky, but I have so many friends who have not been so lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck, it should be about an equal workplace. I feel there’s been a shift, but we’re not there yet. Like all shifts in society, it takes time and steps.”
So just what words of wisdom might she offer to the up-andcoming graduates? “Be prepared to work hard and always be prepared to respect the people around you—no matter what level they’re at. Succeeding in this business is all about working hard.”
Her work-home-family juggling act makes for a frantic schedule, especially with the added demands of the charity work she’s passionate about. “My diary has so much in it that if someone else looked at it and tried to make any sense of what’s in there, I’m sure they wouldn’t understand,” she quips. “But I always figure it’s not about the hours you spend in the office, but what you bring to the table when you are there that should count.”
But it was after having Evie that Bickmore made some life-altering changes. “I couldn’t do everything. I had to make a shift,” she reflects. “I made the decision that I need to focus on my family and my foundation and that has worked well … Learning to say ‘No’ was incredibly powerful. As a woman we say ‘ Yes’ often as we want to make sure everyone is happy, but sometimes it leaves everyone wanting more of you.”
Her partner of five years, Tv-producer Walker—the pair have said they have no plans to marry—helps Bickmore navigate her “full-on” home life. “Chris is an amazing dad,” says Bickmore, who is pleased she said ‘ Yes’ to the family’s recent beach holiday. “We were saying the other night we feel refreshed and ready. Getting all this done is not without its challenges but somehow, in the end, we manage to get there.”
“I made the decision that I need to focus on my family”