In this episode of Kelvin Confidential, host James Hewison sits down with acclaimed writer, director, producer, and showrunner Tony Ayres for a wide-ranging conversation about identity, storytelling, creative ambition, and the changing shape of the Australian screen industry.

Episode Highlights

Tony traces the origins of his creative life back to a childhood marked by migration, instability, and poverty. Arriving in Australia at the age of three with his mother and sister, he reflects on how storytelling became both refuge and survival mechanism, an imaginative response to uncertainty that would eventually become the foundation of his career.

From philosophy and literature to art school, the path was anything but straightforward. Tony speaks candidly about his early studies, his mixed experience at the Victorian College of the Arts, and the pivotal affirmation he received at AFTRS that helped crystallise his belief that he could, in fact, be a writer. It was a small moment with life-changing consequences.

Identity and authorship form a powerful thread throughout the conversation. Tony reflects on how being both a gay man and a person of Chinese heritage shaped his early work, while also discussing the tensions of being categorised within the industry. His insights are thoughtful, nuanced, and deeply personal revealing the complexities of writing from lived experience without being confined by it.

The conversation also turns to the business of storytelling. Tony revisits the founding of Matchbox Pictures, the collaborative vision behind it, and its extraordinary rise to become one of Australia’s most significant production companies. He then explains why, after a decade and the company’s acquisition by NBCUniversal, he chose to step away and return to a more personal, writer-led creative life through Tony Ayres Productions.

Looking outward, Tony offers a sharp and generous perspective on the Australian film and television sector: the pressures on local production, the role of international investment, and the need to build a sustainable screen culture that supports both established voices and emerging talent. He also reflects on the inseparability of art and politics, and, in a lighter turn, shares his long-held dream of creating a comic-book television series.

A thoughtful, generous, and deeply engaging conversation about how stories are made and how they, in turn, make us.