![You'll laugh and you'll cry ... Steven Oliver turned to writing poems and songs to process his struggle with fame. Pictures supplied You'll laugh and you'll cry ... Steven Oliver turned to writing poems and songs to process his struggle with fame. Pictures supplied](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/PDupDCSG52UXrq68xwPPyU/122e2e7b-8a4f-4680-abfb-23ec609caa5f.jpg/r0_0_3701_5552_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Steven Oliver apologises as he hastily re-tunes the strings of his guitar.
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He pops me on loudspeaker while he strums a few chords and hums the lines of a song he's asked if he can sing over the phone.
Our interview about his upcoming appearance at the Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice has become somewhat, and rather delightfully, derailed.
The writer and performer, arguably best known for his role with ABC's hit sketch show Black Comedy, is talking about the price of fame.
He doesn't describe it as such - more the pressure of "always being rolled out" as the funny gay black fella.
"The pre-conceived notion of who you are" - or "who they think you are to them" - and even the "overwhelming love of one piece of you".
But oh, can he make them laugh.
Flamboyant and wickedly funny, Oliver shot to stardom with the Logie-nominated Black Comedy (which first aired in 2014 and was followed by a further three series) - a wildly humorous take on Australian culture through the eyes of Indigenous people.
But as the "ground-breaking" show and his celebrity status soared, Oliver found his soul being sapped.
Phones shoved in his face, the expectation to "turn it on" - even when he was out socialising and dancing with friends - and the take, take, take of the entertainment industry.
He once described it as "being popularised by a punchline that at times was dehumanising".
They certainly didn't want to "see the side of you that's sad", he says.
"They're not ringing you up to hear your heartache.
"And they definitely don't want your thoughts on deaths in custody."
Almost unconsciously, he begins to rattle off the lines of a song he's yet to finish ("but perhaps I will now"):
Sometimes I wish I'd get a call,
Where people ring wanting nothing at all,
Simply calling just to see how I am,
and we have a conversation,
That reminds me that somebody cares.
Oliver reflects that he didn't cope well with fame.
He stopped going out, he stopped replying to texts and calls from friends, he became depressed, anxious and "disconnected" from everybody - including himself.
"Just to walk felt heavy," he says.
"It felt like I was a shell walking about with my spirit dragging behind me.
"People say don't let fame change you but everyone changes around you, and you have to re-organise yourself and your relationship with that person."
Oliver says it "forced me to look at myself".
He began "pushing out poems", finding comfort in the rhythm of the words.
We're back on Solstice ground now; of the sacred power of storytelling to reflect and give voice to the human experience.
For you see, there is more to Steven Oliver than his fabulously funny, larger-than-life self - the performer who's appeared in everything from his own cabaret show at the Opera House to movie blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok.
![Poet and performer ... Steven Oliver, pictured for his cabaret show Bigger and Blacker, will be a special guest at the Border's Winter Solstice event. Poet and performer ... Steven Oliver, pictured for his cabaret show Bigger and Blacker, will be a special guest at the Border's Winter Solstice event.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/PDupDCSG52UXrq68xwPPyU/6fc27d05-ebca-4054-9281-f32ad5d24047.jpg/r0_0_1200_629_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A proud descendant of the Kuku-Yalanji, Waanyi, Gangalidda, Woppaburra, Bundjalung and Biripi peoples.
A lauded poet, playwright, actor, singer and dancer (he can rap and tap!), and even game show host.
But we digress.
At my urging, Oliver shares more lines from his unfinished song, Self Love.
He offers to sing it for me; the rhythm of the lyrics work best when they are sung, he says.
He hasn't picked up the guitar for a while.
"I had a fight with my guitar teacher during COVID," Oliver informs me.
"He turned out to be one of those 'nice racists'."
I'm not entirely sure I know what that means.
"You know the kind who are polite - 'I'm a nice person' - but they say really horrible things, like 'You're too smart to be Aboriginal'!"
It's worse than outright racism, he declares.
The kind that automatically assumed he'd never have any chance of becoming, well, much of anything as a young Aboriginal kid.
"Not once in high school or ... ever growing up, did anyone tell me I could be a writer," he states in a video for Red Room Poetry.
"I do remember a history teacher, with an assignment (that I failed, I believe), making a comment saying I had a good imagination."
He likes to share "that kind of stuff" in keynote addresses he's now asked to give, like the one to the NSW Indigenous teachers conference.
He talks about the racism that still over-shadows his people, his family and himself - even after tasting fame.
Of the power structures "that teach you how to behave".
I'm in two minds (about The Voice referendum); it says we're being given a voice but in the end we still have to be given permission to have that voice.
- Steven Oliver
Of the gnawing, ingrained fear when a police car slows down beside you - if only to go over a speed hump.
"It's my default reaction because of my experiences," Oliver explains.
Of the "interrogation" you become accustomed for no other reason than that you're black; of having bags checked, your identity or intentions questioned while on a simple shopping trip.
The fact "we die 10 years younger than you mob".
That he's now approaching 50 and "my mother is going to leave this earth having not seen an end to racism".
Oliver feels more hopeful about the future as a gay man than an Indigenous person.
"At least I saw marriage equality coming," he offers.
"But when you look at (Indigenous) deaths in custody, I'm sad to say I haven't seen anything that's given me a reason to believe it's going to change."
He says he's in "two minds" about the upcoming Voice referendum where Australians will get to vote on whether an independent advisory body of First Nations people should be enshrined in the constitution.
"We do need a voice, and I hate to sound cynical but ...
"It says we're being given a voice but in the end we still have to be given permission to have that voice.
"It's us asking for a voice then other people deciding if we get it - that's white privilege.
"I'm sick of begging ... for permission to matter, for permission to exist."
![Hope and healing ... the 11th Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice will feature a heart-warming line up of presenters and performers on June 21. Hope and healing ... the 11th Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice will feature a heart-warming line up of presenters and performers on June 21.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/PDupDCSG52UXrq68xwPPyU/2ba8386b-396a-4c70-9026-cb3cf46aae93.jpg/r0_0_5184_3456_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Oliver admits it would be easy to sink into despair about the plight of his people and his personal struggles.
That's why he writes.
When he's in a dark place "with those full-on thoughts", if he lets those thoughts stay in his head, they can justify themselves, he says.
"But if I write them down, if I sing or hear them in the physical world, they become tangible and it changes the way I look at them."
The song aims to show a way out and the lyrics evolve to reflect that - from feeling hopeless to hopeful:
My mind is saying that the pain is gonna go away,
My heart is saying everything is gonna be OK,
My soul is saying that I've still got so much left to say,
Take my spirit, watch it soar and carry all my hurt away.
As the words tip over themselves, as he pours out the hurt and heartache in song, hope is restored to his soul.
"Each time I do that song, it reiterates everything is going to be OK," Oliver says.
"Whether you write for the world, for your people, or yourself, I think writing is something that's amazing.
"Write, write to your heart's content."
As we sign off from a wonderfully whirlwind conversation, the irrepressible Oliver can't resist trotting out one of his trademark lines.
"Stay sexy," he adds breezily, with a final strum of his guitar.
- The Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice is on at Albury's QE II Square on June 21 including presentations from Dr Todd Fernando, Clare Bowditch and performances by Steven Oliver with The Northern Folk. Gather from 5pm in person or join the livestream from 6pm.
- For more details go to Survivors of Suicide & Friends/Winter Solstice on Facebook for more details.