Julia Morris
Actor, Presenter and Comedian
Topic
Profile
Julia Morris is one of Australia’s most accomplished and celebrated performers. A quadruple threat, Julia has seamlessly moved between the stage and the screen for over 34 years.
Julia first appeared on Aussie TV at 17, singing on the talent show New Faces. By the mid-nineties, Julia was a household name as a headlining stand-up and actor, with starring roles in comedy sketch
favourite Full Frontal, nighttime talk show In Melbourne Tonight and comedy panel show, Beauty and the Beast. Julia also starred in the Melbourne run of the hit Broadway musical ‘I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change!’
As a stand-up comedian, Julia has featured in every major comedy festival in the world, taking to the stage with Whoopi Goldberg, Richard Pryor and Robin Williams. From Comedy Festival Galas to the
Prime Minister’s Midwinter Ball, Julia’s infectious humour is universally loved.
Moving to London in 2000, ‘Lady JMo’ featured in several British sitcoms, co-hosted Liquid News, a daily entertainment show on the BBC while also featuring on several comedy panels including
Stephen Fry’s QI.
Her 2001 solo show won the prestigious Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. With a groundswell of comedy fans, Julia also won Time Out London’s ‘Comedy Performer of the Year’.
Julia gave birth to her first daughter, Ruby, in the UK. They moved back to Australia in 2008, where Julia and Australian Opera star David Hobson won Channel 7’s celebrity singing show It Takes Two.
Julia gave birth to her second daughter, Sophie, in 2008 and with a babe in her arms, she became a published author, penning some of her memoirs in ‘Don’t You Know Who I Used To Be?’ in 2009.
Having won ‘Best Australian Act’ at the Time Out Sydney 2009 Comedy Awards, Julia relocated her family to Los Angeles, where she studied with Hollywood acting coach, Lesly Kahn.
In late 2011 Julia returned home to become Australia’s very first Celebrity Apprentice, raising nearly $200,000 for breast cancer research along the way. By the following year, Julia was cast as the
female lead, Gemma Crabb, in the Nine Network drama House Husbands. The show established itself as an audience favourite, with Julia being nominated for ‘Most Popular Actress’ in Australia’s
Logie Awards for five years in a row. The final season of House Husbands was broadcast in 2017.
Between August and November 2013 Julia hosted Nine Network’s Australia’s Got Talent. The same year, her ‘No Judgement’ stand-up tour won the Helpmann Award for Best Comedy. (Australia’s
Tonys.) The large formats just kept coming, and in 2015 Julia co-hosted the very first Australian season of Network Ten’s hit reality show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! with Dr Chris Brown. I’m A Celebrity has since become a highlight of Ten’s annual TV calendar, shooting each year near the Kruger National Park in South Africa.
In February 2019, Julia went straight from the African ‘jungle’ to Chris and Julia’s Sunday Night Takeaway, the Australian version of the ‘Ant and Dec’ feel-good UK hit.
In 2020, Julia appeared as Kitten on ‘The Masked Singer’, making it to the top 4 in the semi-finals before being unmasked. This was followed up with a return to the jungle for ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’, which aired in 2021 and saw Julia and Chris receive a TV Blackbox award for Most Popular Duo.
In 2021, Julia also released the Audible original, ‘Julia Morris Makes it EASY’ as an audiobook and paperback out in bookstores through HarperCollins Australia.
In 2022, Julia was nominated for the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television and returned to screens as host on Season 8 of ‘I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!’ that won Most Outstanding Reality TV Program at the TV WEEK Logie Awards.
2023 is already a big year, as Julia returned as host of Season 9 of I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, joined the premiere season of Taskmaster Australia as a contestant and currently touring her new show, 75 Years in the Business, throughout Australia.
Feedback
Wonderful, hilarious and unmissable - living proof that audacity and irreverent effervescence are life skills.
When Julia Morris is in full verbal flow on a stage, it's as though Joan Rivers, Germaine Greer and Betty Boop are all living inside the same body. Phew, she's a scorcher.
Breathless, glamourous, camp, snobby, self deprecating, gossipy, fastpaced, surprisingly barbed yet subtle with a stream of energy and material that is a lot stronger than her brash-but-catty style might suggest... a delivery so relentless that you beg her to inhale, so rich with potential catchphrases you struggle to take them all in. It holds the audience who can’t afford to lose concentration for a split second for fear of losing something great.
Julia Morris was an absolute delight to work with for our Awards Night in June 2010. She confidentially executed a heavily scheduled presentation of over 40 awards, yet still maintained a sharp wit, sassy humour and friendly yet professional demeanour. Her ability to work with a large number of audience members, and an even larger script content ensured that not only were our guests entertained but we were also able to stay within our production times - a skill always valued by our other suppliers assisting us with the event.
Lastly, our event was held on one of the rainiest nights of the last couple of years, and Ms Morris arrived by foot to the venue wearing gumboots (temporarily), full formal attire and a huge smile. Her good humour and lack of pretension was widely appreciated!
Amazing energy and very well prepared for the day. The whole crowd loved Julia's work.
Great fun! Julia wowed the audience, appealing to all demographics. She pitched her presentation perfectly, a real send-up of the conference theme. Excellent evaluations: 6.8 out of a possible 7... the highest dinner score ever! Don't know how you will match this speaker next year.
Julia Morris was an absolute hit! Everyone loved her and I'm glad we chose her.
She can reduce an audience to a limp heap of laughed-out exhaustion. She has the artfully written patter rich in skillful self-derogation, diabolical powers of observation, a twisted sense of absurdity and cultural acuity, delivered with devastating timing. A jewel in the national crown.
It's great to find someone who's talk is Hugh Hefner-straight without being boorish or attention
seeking, especially as she's damn funny with it. Morris is a natural performer, her Gatling gun
delivery spitting out an hour's worth of universally cracking lines with barely a pause or a flat
moment.
Morris's show is one long, blue, naughty, unrelenting paragraph, with punch lines flipped over the shoulder with a lift of a Jimmy Choo... if you've even the smallest funny bone it will spill you out into the night with a stubborn grin. I'm still laughing.
It's great to find someone who's talk is Hugh Hefner-straight without being boorish or attention seeking, especially as she's damn funny with it. Morris is a natural performer, her Gatling gun delivery spitting out an hour's worth of universally cracking lines with barely a pause or a flat moment.
Comedian Julia Morris, as Lewis’s partner, Gemma, is a genuine revelation: serious, and somehow both vulnerable and formidable.
Julia Morris impressively makes a lot with a little here. She could prove to be the show’s surprise
package.
Her autobiography, ‘Don’t You Know Who I Used To Be?’, had me laughing, crying, then crying with laughter. The woman is a Gucci-clad genius.
She can reduce an audience to a limp heap of laughed-out exhaustion. She has the artfully written patter rich in skillful self-derogation, diabolical powers of observation, a twisted sense of absurdity and cultural acuity, delivered with devastating timing. A jewel in the national crown.
