OH! Magazine - Australian Version October 2016 | Page 10

( OH WOW! )

We sold it as impossible, but it was built
to be achieved. I allowed plenty of time
and I did it first and foremost as an
advocate. The people we spoke to along
the way were a much more important
issue than the unicycling itself.
How did you come up with the Swear Jar
campaign?
I issued a potty mouth retirement rant
(when I publicly retired from acting). I
retired from acting in a fit of
exasperation of the whole cancer riddle
and in doing so I dropped a bit of foul
language on social media. I was sternly
rebuked by my sister, who reminded me
publicly that we weren’t a scratch on
hitting the $10 million and we wouldn't
get there if I was going to be swearing all
over the place!
I bit back I suppose; I felt like I wasn’t
the only one in Australia who has nasty
words for cancer so I put the call out to
our village and asked, ‘Am I the only one
with limitless amounts of foul language
to direct towards cancer?’ Australia is
the country best placed to try and swear
cancer to death – it went nuts. In fact, it
went so nuts that we now have 4,000
swear jars dotted around the country.
We’ve got people everywhere trying to
deliver the ultimate ‘f*#k you’ to cancer!
You also launched your personal project,
an online newspaper called The Stick. How
difficult was it getting others on board?

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OH! MAGAZINE (OCTOBER 2016)

It’s always difficult to secure support in
charity land. We’re in a charity-fatigued
world, you know as consecutive
governments keep dropping the support,
so it’s left to people like me to try and
fill the gap.
It’s always extremely difficult trying to be
heard above the white noise. I had to
hustle the old fashioned way and in the
same way that everyone does; it’s not
like I had these people on speed dial or
anything like that!
It wasn’t easy. I’ve been pulling together
this current, of what I call, ‘the coalition
of the thrilling’, for over a year now, and
it’s important to me that I get the
country’s most interesting and notables
on my side. Some of them I knew and
some I was able to reach through mutual
acquaintances, but many of them were
cold calls and I was just relying on the
strength of my letter writing mostly. This
idea that I got out my Rolodex and
called up my mates to get behind it [the
project] is entirely inaccurate. It’s taken
a year of steady pushing to formulate
this coalition. I’m dealing with A-listers
and I’m somewhere on the B-list!
What have you gained most from running
the Love Your Sister charity?
I now have a life that’s much more
fascinating. It’s so much more
interesting than acting because I have
quite intense interpersonal relationships
with many thousands of Australians, and

I feel like I have a life now.
This has rescued me from mental health
and addiction issues, and without
meaning to sound trite or clichéd, it’s
given me a new lease for life. It sounds
sucky but I just feel so lucky to be a
small part of this. And I’m happy. I’ve
never been able to say that before, and
it’s really the collective experience of all
these families that are similarly affected
by cancer, that’s given me that lift. When
I wake up I feel like I have something
important to do and that means
everything to me now. I really do exist
solely for this village, and I don’t have
anything else in my life – everything else
is gone now. I’ve cleared my life so that I
can devote myself to this. It feels good
to be a part of it – and yeah – I can see
sunshine now, where before I used to see
rain.
In terms of future plans for the charity,
Samuel says with raw honesty, that he
has none. ‘There’s no B plan. If The
Stick doesn’t work, it’s back to the
drawing board. I’ve put all my eggs in
this basket, I’m out of favours and I’m
exhausted. If this doesn’t work I don’t
know where I’ll be.’

To find out more including how to donate
visit www.loveyoursister.org
You can also watch Samuel’s unicycle
journey online at
https://youtu.be/NmqvhyuUHGM