Who ever said two’s company and three’s a crowd hadn’t met The Project’s all-new hosting trio.
Jesse Mulligan, Josh Thomson and Kanoa Lloyd are the fresh faces of Three’s current affairs/comedy offering. And despite the show – which airs weeknights at 7pm – only kicking off tonight, the presenters are already as thick as thieves.
“Our friendship has been accelerated,” says 40-year-old comedian Jesse, a regular on 7 Days. “I’m sure we’d naturally become friends anyway, but we had to become the best of friends in just 21 days.”
Indeed, the clicky hosts have endured three intense weeks of rehearsals, research and filming in the lead-up to The Project’s hotly-anticipated launch. But with hard work comes great rewards, says resident funnyman Josh.
“I feel incredibly lucky I get to hang out with these guys all day every day and call it work,” says the 35-year-old star of Gary of the Pacific. “We were getting better and better each day in rehearsal, so much that I was starting to fret we may have peaked too early.
“But we are still constantly surprising each other,” he says, “and genuinely making each other laugh. Especially Kanoa – she’s a hoot.”
Three’s former weather presenter can barely believe her ears. Naturally, the only non-trained comedian of the line-up was apprehensive about cracking jokes in front of Josh and Jesse. “Are you serious? There’s a lot of trust in this group,”
Thirty-year-old Kanoa adds, “While we don’t take ourselves seriously, we do take the news seriously. We’re focused on the daily news cycle but we have the opportunity to talk about some of the water-cooler stories that don’t always make the cut.”
Catch the trio in action on Three tonight, and read the full story in this week’s issue of Woman’s Day, on sale now.
