CHASE TO THE TOP
Anne Hegerty’s love for Kiwis
STAR REVEALS THAT SHE’S ONLY TOO HAPPY TO BE QUIZZED BY FANS
Anne Hegerty was warned before she came to Auckland last week for a whirlwind trip to promote the TV show The Chase that Kiwis were rather fond of the quiz programme.
But she was so blown away by the response she got that just hours after arriving in the country Anne – best known as the formidable Governess – was messaging the other Chasers, telling them, “You’ve got to come to New Zealand – we’re treated like demi-gods here!”
As if to illustrate her point, moments after finishing a photoshoot with the Weekly at Auckland’s Westhaven Marina, she was walking through the car park when a vehicle pulled up and the driver called out, “Hey Anne, nice to see you. We love you on The Chase!”
“Thank you so much,” she responded. “Isn’t that nice?”
Later, in her hotel room, she says while The Chase is a success at home in the UK, she was surprised to find out how obsessed New Zealanders are with it. Despite having been on the show for eight years, Anne still has “pinch-me moments” when she realises this is her life now, and the warm welcome from Kiwis is one of those times.
“It’s just been brilliant,”she says. “And I am always happy to say hello back and have a selfie if people ask. It’s the least you can do if they watch the show. One is always aware that it could all end tomorrow.”
That’s not likely, given how popular The Chase is, but if it did, it has been one hell of a ride for Anne, who accepts she will be forever seen as the Governess, or “Frosty Knickers”, as beloved host Bradley Walsh affectionately calls her.
On TV, she cuts a haughty and somewhat imperious figure in that school-marmish suit and carefully coiffed hairstyle. When just being herself, she’s warmer and funnier. With her hair in a softer style and wearing jeans and a top emblazoned with skulls, the quiz lover is a far cry from her intimidating alter ego.
Anne admits her life changed so much when she started doing The Chase that for a while, she felt like she was two different people. “It really felt like it was happening to someone else, and there was me and this other woman. But I realised a couple of years ago that I no longer felt like that, and now it’s just me.”
That doesn’t mean her personality has merged with the persona of the Governess. “It’s hard to say to what extent I am the Governess. My close relatives would say I am more like her in real life than most people would. I suppose I am quite no-nonsense like her.”
Anne’s role on the high-rating quiz show is just perfect for somebody who has spent most of their life just wanting to read and absorb information. Diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum when she was 46, Anne (now 60) didn’t have the happiest of childhoods.
“As a child it wasn’t that I couldn’t make friends, I just didn’t understand why one was supposed to. I was perfectly happy, just me and a shelf of books. I didn’t understand why I needed other people and that hurt a lot of feelings.”
She became a journalist but hated her work being edited, so she moved into academic proofreading. In 1988, she went on game show Mastermind and although she didn’t do particularly well, it opened the door to a social club of Mastermind contestants, which in turn led to a high-level quizzing circuit in the UK.
After the British round of the World Quizzing Championships, she was approached by “the largest man I had ever seen in my life. He said, ‘Hi, my name is Mark Labbett, you just beat me, who are you?’”
He mentioned he’d just filmed the pilot of a TV series called The Chase and when it was broadcast a few weeks later with Mark (the Beast) and Shaun Wallace (the Dark Destroyer) as the only Chasers, Anne fantasised about being in the Chaser’s seat.
“Then I thought, ‘Right, back to proofreading.’ But less than three months later, I heard they were looking for a female Chaser and I thought, ‘Why not put my name forward?’”
A quiet confidence in her ability means she’s never really suffered too much from nerves. “I don’t panic,” she tells. “I have done enough quizzing to know I am pretty good. To be honest, being on the autism