Rodger Corser’s three youngest kids are not easily impressed. Their dad has starred in plenty of classic Aussie shows – from Rush to Underbelly to Doctor Doctor – and been nominated three times for a TV WEEK Gold Logie, but they aren’t exactly begging to watch him in action.
“I’ll put on an old episode of a cop show, just to show them when Dad used to run around and catch the bad guys,” Rodger tells TV WEEK. “They’re actually not very interested.”
Rodger’s now taking on a new role – as the host of Nine Network game show The Floor – but it’s still not impressing Budd, 14, Cilla, 13, and Dustin, nine.
“If we’re watching the footy on a Friday night and an ad for The Floor comes on, they really don’t even glance at it,” he says. “Although they are now asking a couple of questions. They’ve actually asked me who’s won and I’ve said, ‘There is no way I’m telling you! You’re not going to school and telling everyone that!’
“Short attention span, kids! They just want to go straight to the ending and I say: ‘It’s all about the journey.’”
The Floor is definitely a game show that takes its time, with viewers getting to know the contestants over a number of weeks. It starts with 81 contestants, each with one square of the floor and their own choice of trivia category. (Rodger says his would be sports-related, maybe “Hawthorn premierships”.)
Contestants go through a series of trivia battles until one has total control of the floor and takes home the prize money of $200,000.
The Floor has been a hit around the world and actor Rob Lowe is the US host. Rodger is quick to point out that he’s not “Australia’s Rob Lowe”!
“He’s far prettier than me,” Rodger insists. “He’s pretty good for 60, isn’t he?”
At 52, Rodger is doing all right himself. He’s just shot a guest role in the second season of the comedy series Austin, starring Michael Theo. “That was great,” he says. “But it was very quick, just a couple of days.”
His move from actor to presenter has been a deliberate one.
“I found that there’s probably been a little less acting work recently, hence I’ve been broadening out in the last couple of years, with The Traitors and now The Floor,” he explains. “It’s something I probably would’ve shied away from a while back, but a couple of years ago I decided I needed to add another string to my bow. And I’ve actually quite enjoyed the challenge.”
Rodger has had to go from learning lines, which he’d been doing for more than two decades, to ad-libbing.
“It’s a little more scary being half unscripted,” he admits. “But it’s a new skill and I’ve enjoyed slowly getting better at it.”
When he’s not under studio lights, Rodger is very much a family man. He’s also clearly proud of the oldest of his four children, Zipporah, whose mum is singer Christine Anu.
“She just filled in on drive for Triple J,” he says. “She’s really focusing on getting some of her own music out pretty soon. She’s recorded a couple of songs, and I think they’re really good. She’s only 22, so I’m excited to see where she goes in the next couple of years.”
Meanwhile, Budd, Cilla and Dustin keep Rodger and wife Renae busy. Like a lot of parents, Rodger spends a big chunk of his weekends driving them around to various sporting venues.
“We’ve just started round one of all the football seasons. We’ve got a couple of different codes going on. Sunday seems to be our day – three games, and they could be anywhere across Sydney. So, yeah, we’re very active with the kids and all their activities.”
Rodger is devoted to Renae, who he met 20 years ago when she was a theatre actress. In recent Instagram posts he’s described her as “hot”, “super hot” and “talented beyond belief”.
“I’m contractually obligated to do that!” he laughs. “No, I’m joking. She just turned 50, so we had a great celebration with an awesome live band. Some of our friends who are singers, including Zippy, got up and sang a few songs. It was special.”
Even though he’s enjoying the new challenge of presenting, Rodger is still keen on acting, and is working on writing something of his own. But, he says, it’s a “long process” to get a show on air, and especially tricky when there’s uncertainty about how much Australian content will be produced in the future.
“We haven’t really worked out where we sit with all these new players. Some of them do make content anyway, but there’s no guarantee that it will still be happening five years from now,” he says. “Not having that certainty from year to year is not helpful at all.”
For now, Rodger’s focus is on The Floor. Even though the show has been a hit in countries as diverse as the Netherlands (where it originated) and Argentina, he knows that there are no sure things in TV.
“It’s always a little bit nerve-racking, isn’t it, to see how the first series of something goes?” he says.
“But I’m actually pretty confident with this one.”
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