Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About, the Stella Podcast.

I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host, and every week I sit down with some of the biggest names in the country because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to talk about.

Having established a career as a young actor and musician in the mid to late nineties, Danielle Spencer made a decision, after marrying Russell Crowe in two thousand and three and soon starting a family, to take a step back from work to focus on raising their two sons, while Russell saw in carea saw him traveling the world.

Now, at fifty six, Danielle is releasing her first album of original music in fifteen years as she finds herself in a new season of life, which includes rediscovering her creativity and adjusting to a new family dynamic with her sons, who are now aged twenty one and nineteen.

You kind of have to kickstart yourself again and go, okay, I can reenergize myself and reinvent myself and put myself out there again instead of sitting around gathering dustin cobwebs.

In today's episode of the Stellar podcast, danniel reflects on how she's reinventing herself in midlife, opens up about making the decision to divorce the man she had known since she was nineteen.

And fires up about what it's like.

To read nasty comments about herself online.

Dannielle Spencer, Welcome to the Stellar Podcast.

Thank you so much, Sarah.

It's lovely to be here.

It's lovely to meet you.

Are You're one of the people that I feel like I know.

Well same, I feel like I know you.

I've watched a lot of these interviews and I kind of feel as though we've met many times.

Oh well, thank you.

That's lovely to hear and absolutely the same, but we never have, so thank you for being here today.

You're on the cover of Stella.

Last time you were on the cover of Stella five years ago in twenty twenty, and rereading that it was a time where you were talking about how you were finally starting to prioritize.

Your own career.

You're about to be on a reality show on Channel seven at the time.

We're just starting to dabble in some music again, doing some covers at the time.

So I wanted to ask you five years on how that's going, and would I be right in finding a fair bit of that answer in the fact that you're about to release in March of next year, your first album of original material in fifteen years.

Yeah, it has been a while since I've had original music out there, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if I would actually do that again.

And then I I guess it was sort of around the end of COVID time and we'd all been locked away, and I started getting that pull towards writing, probably because we're all locked up in our little zoos.

It kind of I've gained momentum to the point where I've thought, Okay, I think I've actually got an album in me, and I guess that whole thing of the world shutting down, I thought, why not just put myself out there again and write these songs that I you know, I feel as though I have new things to say.

I feel as though this is a very different stage of life to when I put out my previous albums, and it, Yeah, it just was all very organic and kind of just happened.

I got to the end of the process when Okay, I've written an album, so I'll just push ahead with it.

Well.

Those two things that you touch upon, there being in a sort of a new season of your life, but also having something to say, are very apparent.

Even in the opening lyrics of the first single from the album, which is called Regenerate, begins with the clap of thunder and includes the lyrics I've been gathering dust and cobwebs.

It's time to change, it's time to grow.

Tell me about that.

You don't seem like somebody who had any cobwebs, proverbial or otherwise.

But I know you're.

Also an ambassador for Glow, which is a new platform and will include a radio station for female artists aged thirty five and over illustrator in New Zealand.

So I'm again sensing from your work, from your lyrics that clearly one of the things that is inspiring you and you want to talk about is this visibility of women over twenty five thirty five.

Absolutely, I think landing in this stage of life, I think for women can be really challenging and confronting, like the earth is shifting a bit beneath your feet.

You've brought up your kids, they're grown up.

You think, okay, now there's time for me.

But I've been out of whatever I've been doing for a long time, so you have to cut.

That's where regenerate comes in.

It's like you kind of have to kickstart yourself again and go, Okay, I can reenergize myself and reinvent myself and put myself out there again instead of sitting around gathering dust and cobwebs, which I think I think we can all do a little when we get to middle age and you know, old age, I guess as well, or any stage of life, anybody can get to a point where they just feel like they're stuck or not actually following the things that they really want to do.

They get complacent, or they just feel like the opportunities have shrunk.

So yes, I am very passionate about the fact that there are a lot of women over the age of twenty five who are not supported in the nemusic industry or by radio and glow.

The project that you mentioned is a new music brand for Australian New Zealand female and artists to kind of put their music out there be heard.

There's a radio station, there will be interviews, there will be a live tour series where like four artists will get together and all be on the same bills, so everybody can share each other's audiences.

So it's going to be, I think, a really great platform for all those women that are not young pop stars, who still have a lot to say and probably doing the best work of their careers, but can't get their foot in the door.

It's like a lot of artists that you think would easily get on the radio, don't you know.

There wasn't a single female Australian artist in the top fifty air play for twenty twenty three or twenty four.

Isn't that crazy?

Not a single one.

And we feel like in so many ways that we're making progress and we're getting better at in some parts of high profile industries, whether that's women on television, women in streaming, women in film.

You obviously were worked a lot as an actor in the early years of your career.

What is it about music that it is clearly.

In some ways still such a young person's game, Sarah, I honestly don't know, you know, and I think there has been progress made in the acting world, definitely.

I think we're seeing fantastic performances and TV shows, movies headed by women in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies music is probably slower to catch up because it's I don't know if it's the fact that obviously young people consume a lot of music, so maybe it's they just keep directing it at them.

But those of us that are getting older, we still want to listen to music, and personally, I want to hear the messages of people you know close to my age, as well as lovely, fresh new stuff.

But I think as you get older, you get more interesting, you get deeper, you get kind of more worldly wise, and I think women at that point in life have a lot to say, they really do.

And I was just thinking about when you recently announced your new album, there were a lot of high profile women that reached out to congratulate you publicly, including people like Jackie Oh, I mean, Delta Goodrum, who has said that she actually taught herself piano listening to one of your very first albums.

So I love this notion about other women in the industry supporting other women in the industry too.

We can tell from even that small response of celebrities that it's clearly a message that people are hungry for.

Can ask you a little bit about that female solidarity, and it does sound a little bit like a cookie cutter that we would give one another on International Women's Day, women.

Supporting other women, But I really do feel word at.

A moment in time where that message is being felt without shame or apology by women.

What's your observation on.

That, Yeah, exactly that.

My observation is that women are ready in music.

We're talking about that specifically at the moment, are kind of ready to join forces and lift each other up.

I think maybe when you're younger, it might feel like a competition there's only room for me, or there's only room for so many of us.

But then as you get older, obviously you understand there's actually room for everybody.

And there's something very interesting about getting diverse artists to get on a bill, which is what will happen with the tours on Glow.

There'll be for at least for diverse artists, so sharing all their audiences together so they get that extra exposure.

I think there is a sense of camaraderie in women in music because we all know it's very difficult to get support.

It really is.

And what about in your own life, you like me a mum of two boys.

Yes, you can definitely feel a little bit outnumbered sometimes by the testosterone in the household front.

For me, my female friends a huge part of my life.

What about for you, behind the scenes outside of the industry, what role do other women and female friends play in your life?

A huge role?

I mean, I think I still have friendships with the girls I went to high school with from the age of eleven.

They all still get together very regularly, and that's, you know, quite a gang of girls women, which I think is lovely that we've all stayed in touch.

My first job out of school was a musical.

I was dancing and singing in that call Resputant, And to this day, that group of girls is still some of my closest friends.

And then the rest of my friends of people I met maybe early in music career or whatever.

But I have the stream of women in my life that I've known since I was eleven, some of those school friends since I was five or six, that I'm still friends with.

I think it is really important for women to have that kind of support from other women.

The beauty of that, I imagine, also, Daniel, is you have people that you bear witness to one another's lives.

And I think there is something about people that have known you since you were a kid, because there is a sense of real family and connection there.

It's like these people have watched you literally grow up.

And my girlfriends from school, for instance, have been very supportive through my musical years.

Turned up at gigs and you know, they're all there cheering me on.

I don't know.

I just think it's really lovely to kind of have people around you that have known you for a long time.

Well, you mentioned being in respution when you were very young, and a friend of yours being a theater performer.

Is being in a musical anything that you would consider to do again in future?

Yeah, I could consider it.

I think for a few years there I thought I wouldn't because having kids, I didn't want to be working every night.

I liked to try and be home to put them to bed and give them dinner and have that kind of hangout time after their school day, So I didn't kind of chase it for that reason.

Now that they're older, I'm probably more open to it, But it would have to be something that really kind of spoke to me.

And you obviously perform on stage fairly often.

You've got a couple of gigs coming up in working with Delta on her Christmas special.

Tell me a little bit about stage nerves.

Does that still happen.

Have you found that it's something that you've gotten better at because some performers, which sounds counterintuitive, so sometimes that can get a little bit worse as your career progresses.

And as you say, you weren't working for quite a while there while you were focusing on raising your two sons.

So how's the live performance aspect of things playing out for you?

You know, it's funny, Sarah, because it's kind of in a way, it's sort of both for me, like there's maybe part of you that feels it's harder because you don't have that kind of youthful naivety and optimism, and you know, there's a little more I don't want to say arrogance, but you know that's saying the arrogance of youth in terms of I'm invincible, I can do this.

And as you as we get older, generally we kind of get more humility, more empathy, and we're more aware of the fragility of things.

And also, you know, as a singer musician, putting yourself out there.

You know that you're not a twenty five year old pop star.

You're much older than that, So you can feel a bit like, I know I'm not meant to be doing this, but I'm doing it anyway.

You know, I don't care that I'm older, but so nerve wise, I would say, on one hand, I kind of I don't care as much what people think of me in terms of I'm not really trying to please you audience.

I've written an album that full of things that I wanted to say that is authentically me and so performing that I'm not feeling overly anxious about that.

But having said that, there's the kind of background noise.

There were a lot of views where I wasn't performing a lot, so I've got to kind of work hard to get myself, you know.

Back to that match fit.

Match fit exactly.

I love that answer really nails the complexity, oh, for everything in the world does.

And it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Yeah, it's like as we get older, we simultaneously get more confident and less confident.

Exactly.

No, it really really resonates with me, and when people like me ask a question, and it sounds like they're sort of a yes or no, and there's like, actually it's both.

It's both.

Yeah, it is complex getting older.

It's like there's a lot of things that are confronting.

But then there's another side of it where you don't care as much what people think.

And I guess because you're not at the beginning of your career and trying to take on the world, the pressure isn't as great.

Coming up, Daniel reveals what it was really like to have her divorce from Russell Crowe play out in the media and while she no longer reads articles about herself.

So you were a relatively young mom.

Your son's as you say, now, your youngest I think is nineteen, your eldest is twenty two.

Can I ask a little bit how they feel about your career and you starting to focus a bit on that because I think it's so interesting when somebody has really prioritized raising them and you know, you did take a step back, and logistically also, of course you had to because you know their dad, Russell Crowe.

Obviously here job was not yet nine to five.

To put it mildly, there was a lot of travel being away.

How did they feel about to day supportive of your career.

Do they ever talk to you about their reflections now that they're getting older and they can see the sacrifices that you made for.

Them, They are supportive.

I think it can be a little odd for kids, when they've seen you as mum to then be doing something that's putting me out there in a different light.

So I don't think it's necessarily completely comfortable for them even watching their dad, you know, who they have seen on screen their whole lives.

It's that thing of knowing somebody so well, and when you see them perform, it's like, Okay, that's weird because that's just mum, or that's just dad and he's doing a role and that just really sounds like dad.

You know.

It's so probably slightly difficult for them to be completely objective.

Having said that, they're very supportive.

They're both creative.

One of them's interested in acting and writing, the other one is interested in music and is studying at the moment.

So I think they get it.

But yeah, it's probably a little shift of okay, that's slightly weird and slightly uncomfortable.

I imagine that they have been asked as they've gotten older, Are you going to follow in your dad's footsteps?

Are you're going to follow in your mum's footsteps?

I'd love to ask you about giving your childhood and you grew up of course with your father Don Spencer, one of the most beloved singer songwriters in the country, familiar to so many generations of Australians as well from the time that he was on play school.

Will you ask that question a lot growing up and how, if anything, has that shaped how you've helped your boys navigate that because everybody deals with that in their own world.

You know you're going to do what your mum or dad does, But as we know, it's a whole other conversation when you're dealing with someone that's in the entertainment industry and that everyone knows you know what their mom does, everyone knows what their dad does.

I think I have felt protective of them on that topic because I didn't ever want them to feel pressured to follow in their dad's footsteps or my footsteps.

They can make their own footsteps in anything they like.

In fact, honestly, I'd be pretty happy if neither of them went into the entertainment industry.

They're both interested in their own ways, but it's a really hard industry.

So I would be very happy for them to go any which way, and I tried to make sure I conveyed that to them.

Would you classify yourself as an empty nest?

And now, because obviously with Regenerate, as you say, there's this real theme of what happens as you enter an era of your life when your children are growing up, going down on their own path.

So what actually now, what does the day to day look like for you?

Well, they're still at home, so I don't have an empty nest.

I have both sons, and my older son's beautiful girlfriend has lived with us for six years and she's gorgeous.

So I've got three kids or you know, young adults at home.

So it's not an empty nest.

It's a full, full nest.

But you know, I'm not obviously not having to run around and do the school thing and all of that, so I'm kind of enjoying this phase.

We've had a few different people here on the Stellar podcast who are navigating empty mines.

Nasty children have moved overseas for work or interstate to study and really hard I mean the opportunities that come with it, which again is what your album touches upon, but the absolute heartache and heartbreak of it.

I remember interviewing Jennifer Lopez a couple of years ago and she said, I thought I'd had my heart broken.

No, like, my children getting older is the biggest heartbreak, and her children are still at home and her children, I think, around the same age as mine, So the heartbreak can start quite early.

Yeah, because you start realizing, oh, okay, that's not going to be my forever.

They're going to just go off and do their own forever without me.

It's hard, and yeah, nobody talks about that with women.

I think it's hard for a number of reasons.

You know, that's one of them.

That you have focused so intensely on your kids for a couple of decades.

Then you know they leave home or do their own thing, and you think, okay, great, that leaves me time to do my thing.

But what is my thing now?

Because I've been at it for a long time, And then you have to start worrying about your parents because they're getting older.

So you sandwich between you know, you still have responsibilities to your grown kids and you're still watching how they're navigating their twenties or whatever, and your parents getting older, so then there's that added pressure as well, and no one really discusses that very much.

I think that's part of the middle age women getting depression or autoimmune syndromes that are very prevalent in middle aged women pain syndromes, and it seems to be partly hormonal, but I think it's also partly because the world has shifted and there are new pressures, and you know, the heartbreak of the kids growing up and all of that and the okay, here I am now and what do I do now?

I completely relate to that, and I think so many people would.

As you say, it's not a discussion that we necessarily have enough.

I was actually going to ask you about your experience had you identified with that Sandwich generation description.

Do you mind talking a little bit more about your own experience of it.

Well, I'm lucky in that my parents have been very active and young for their ages and still are.

There's been a couple of health issues along the way for both of them, but they are still both kind of highly functioning.

My father's still running the Australian Children's Music Foundation, you know, getting music out to underprivileged kids.

And so he's very actively still engaged in music and life, and so as my mother.

I also have a stepfather and he's had a lot of serious health issues over the last year or two.

So that's been, you know, difficult for all of us as a family to kind of come to terms with because things change.

You know, your used to your family gatherings being one thing, and then they change a bit because somebody's ailing, and you know, it's confronting and sad.

But I guess all you can do is kind of try and have the most good times together that you can grab it while it's still there.

I wanted to ask you.

You are going to be performing later this month at your ex husband Russell Crowe's indoor garden party at Sydney's Mmore Theater.

Russell is doing some media at the moment.

I don't know if you saw, but Richard Wilkins interviewed him on Channel nine this week and put him on the spot talking about indoor garden party, and Richard asked if you were being very well paid to perform, because you'll be performing some of your new music there, and let's just say that Russell jokingly, good.

Question, Thank you Richard looking out for me.

But I wanted to ask Danielle about this absolute affection and good humor that you and Russell talk about one another in the media in public, even though you've been divorced for about seven years.

For you and Russell, I genuinely would say, it's been one of the most convincing and public and really inspiring cases of a couple who have co parented and spoken about, as I say, each other with absolute warmth and affection, And that moment was just one of many.

You know.

Russell was also on Kyle and Jackie Oh this week where he was talking about an anecdote involving you when he was filming Master and Commander and said that you came on set and like he thinks, you were quite taken with the look of him.

In his uniform.

Yes, I mean this is something that we don't always see about exes.

Can I ask you how has it felt?

Because I know it's not always in my own experience of co parenting, it's not always as easy as it looks.

What drove you to do that as a couple, and of course for you individually and as your boys have gotten older a little bit what I asked about before, You know, do you feel that they're now looking as they get older as young men, the sacrifices that you made as a mom and putting your career on the back burner.

Are they obviously the beneficiaries of the way that you and Russell have chosen to conduct yourselves since separating.

I hope so, I hope that the way we did it has impacted them as less as it possibly can.

And I think for the main part we have successfully moved through those transitions.

I am not going to lie and I you know, it's difficult.

I wouldn't.

I don't want to make out that the whole thing was it's all just been lovely and everything's fine.

There were days and moments where obviously things were not fine, were tense, we were unhappy, and it's sad.

It's really sad breaking up with somebody that you know, you've known for so long, that you've had children with me, kind of breaking up the family.

And it felt very much like I was driving that.

So I had to deal with my almost sense of guilt that I was fracturing the family.

But obviously I did it for a number of reasons and wouldn't have done it if I didn't feel it had to happen.

But yeah, that there was some difficult times, as there are for I think anybody that is separating or getting divorced.

So I just want to clear that up and say we were not perfect, and you know we're still not, but you know, I just we started as a friendship working together on the movie The Crossing, and we were friends for quite a while before we even got together, so the respect was kind of there, The friendship was there initially it was a professional friendship, and then it kind of moved on from there.

So I just thought, I've known this person since I was nineteen and he was twenty five, and it would to me, it's just incredibly sad if you and even through other relationships that we had through we were together and not together and together and not together.

Even through other relationships, we still stayed in touch.

And when he was spending a lot of time overseas filming and I was here doing music and acting, we'd still get together when he came to Sydney, hang out chat, he'd call me from overseas, So that friendship kind of carried on through various other relationships that we had, and to me, it just seemed it would just be ridiculous to end up completely estranged or enemies after that kind of connection and having two children together.

So I was just determined to kind of keep things kind of calm, peaceful, as peaceful as I could, and kind of keep reminding him of our past.

And he's aware of that, and I don't think at any point he wanted us to be.

At odds.

So yeah, hopefully we've done it in a way that hasn't damaged the children too much.

They seem to have come through it pretty well.

You know, you and Russell have both repartnered, so inevitab believe in with the indoor garden party, there'll be rumors that, oh, you know there's friction between Danielle and you know, Russell's partner.

How do you do Do you pay any attention to that?

Not really, because there's no recourse.

So if you can't do anything about it, just don't engage with it.

You know, I can't change what people are going to write, so I just really don't take it on board, and and I really hope that Russell's partner does not take it on board, because I'm sure she really does not enjoy those sort of articles and it's it's unfair, and you know, it must be difficult for her when the focus is on this marriage, you know, and the children.

She's his partner now, and it must be tedious for her to kind of have those things thrown at her.

Oh, tedious, perfect word for it.

And then what about for you, Danniel, because you've been with your partner Adam for coming up I think to ten years now.

So god time goes fast.

What does he ever make about you know, people like me or Richard Wilkins or whoever, or Russell himself bringing up your marriage in the public conversation.

I have to say, Adam is not remotely bothered by any of it.

He doesn't tend to read a lot of that stuff.

He's not in the entertainment industry, so he's not googling articles about I mean, every now and then will say, oh, an article popped up saying this, it's just come into his feed.

But for the most part, he's a pretty well balanced individual and not prone to kind of angsting about things.

He just doesn't really take it on.

When did you sort of learn if it all to stop the Google search.

You know, as you've come through the industry yourself as a young actor, as you say you were nineteen in the crossing you worked as an actor, We've seen media take on all sorts of forms in the course of our respective careers.

You know, the Internet happened and then social media happens, so all of the speculation and the rumors and the good and the bad, it's just become more and more amplified and found different platforms.

Was there a moment in your career where he thought, I'm just not going to listen to this, not going to look at news alerts.

There's certain things I'm going to shut out, so I don't hear it.

Yeah, I think probably around maybe around the divorce.

I mean, I've never been a fan of googling articles and then reading all the nasty, bitchy comments that people post after.

I just think, if that's how you're spending your time, yeah, not worth reading.

So I don't take any of that on because basically those people just hate everybody.

So he cares.

But yeah, I don't chase looking at articles about myself because it can be upsetting if they're completely inaccurate or if they're saying the wrong thing.

You know, I've had articles putting me together with somebody else.

When I'm with somebody else and it's you know, it can be damaging and difficult to deal with.

So I kind of probably around the divorce because there was so many articles and a lot of people who were fans of Russell then decided they detested me.

So I just kind of went, it's just not worth looking at Why waste my life doing that?

Damn straight tedious again.

Isn't it Somewhere or somebody will send you something going look at this what somebody said about you, and you go, oh okay.

So yes, there are people out there who really really hate my guts because I don't smile enough on the red carpet.

Who cares?

God must have visceral memories, maybe hopefully not current of people and photographers yelling at you to smile when you're on the red carpet.

I mean, I hear, oh yeah, oh yeah.

And what goes through your mind when someone's gonna smile, smile and you got fifty.

Fe am I smiling at I'm just standing here in my finery on a carpet, looking at fifty photographers.

It's blinding, everything's flashing in your eyes, and to me, it always just feels idiotic standing there just smiling inanely at what.

For what it's like is when people say, just relax when someone's in a superstrass Oh gee, thank you.

Yeah.

Oh now I'm relaxed.

Yeah great, but now I'm smiling.

Yeah.

For me, it's just kind of I want to get from the beginning of the carpet to the end of the carpet as quickly as I can, and I don't smile very successfully for most of it.

I might crack a few, but I just can't keep it up.

It just doesn't work for me, and it really irritates a lot of people.

Yeah.

Well, you know what I personally find irritating is the fact that we yell at people to smile, and I think women particularly get told all the time.

I've had it.

Walking down the street, someone goes, oh, oh, smile love, It's not that bad.

Okay, what am I smiling at?

I'm walking on my own listening to music.

Why am I meant to be smiling that I'd look insane.

I mean, you know, if we were going to sign a petition, I mean I'm not much of a petition.

Person, Daniel.

I don't know if you are, but I would be tempted to launch one to say, could we make twenty twenty six a year that we stop telling women to smile?

Smile?

We'll smile when it's called for, exactly when it's real.

Yeah, let me finish up by asking you about the album.

It's really something that will be a rallying cry or reflection to women as they enter new seasons of their life to dust off those cobwebs, and that there are so many other opportunities and new things available to you.

So are there ever things that you think in the next you know, multiple decades lie professionally and personally, that is next for you to be taking on.

I'm open, you know.

I think that's the nice part of this age because I'm not kind of desperately grasping after a particular thing.

So if a musical theater role came up and I went, oh, that feels like that would be a great fit for me.

That would be fun.

I'll grab it.

If somebody threw a movie script at me, and when I think this role is right for you, and I went, oh, yeah, I do that but if that doesn't happen, that's also fine.

I'm happy to kind of keep going write my songs.

You know.

For me, writing songs is kind of very cathartic and therapeutic, as it is for a lot of songwriters.

So that's kind of where I put my That's my therapy session, and I'll always want to keep doing that.

As for the rest of it, I'm kind of nicely open and not desperately chasing anything in particular.

Oh, that sounds like a good place to be, and that I think explains so much about the energy that you feel listening to the music and sitting here talking to you today.

Oh, it does.

It's been a pleasure to talk to you, Danny's been a pleasure to talk to you, Sarah.

Thank you for coming into the studio and Dannielle.

Spencer's new album, Regenerate is out in March, and in the meantime, you can head to your favorite streaming platform to pre save it, where you'll also listen to the new songs Regenerate, the Game and Hummingbird.

Thank you for joining me today.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode.

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I'll be back in your ears next week