Comedy 4 Karma: Celia Pacquola

For over a year now Celia Pacquola has played the pant-suit clad, office worker Nat on ABC’s hit show Utopia. While comedy and acting isn’t a first for Celia, her career in the show is, and it’s something that she can’t help but pretend is real as she briskly walks through Melbourne, briefcase in hand, on her lunch break from recording.
“You just can’t not. You’re in a little blazer and you look like you’ve got things to do, people to talk to and meetings to have,” she says with a laugh.
“What was funny is that we filmed it in the city in the business end so when we’d have lunch breaks from filming going into the real world dressed like I was, they would have thought I was one of them. I could fit in with real people wearing my lanyard and my little pant suit strutting up and down Collins Street.”
In more familiar territory, Celia will soon perform at the Comedy 4 Karma event at the Daylesford Town Hall to raise money for the Daylesford Dharma School. Celia is well-known for her perfectly framed one-liners and personal musings, all of which are carefully crafted by her months in advance. But that preparation behind each show is something Celia is slowly trying to change.
“I’m trying to be a bit looser and include more audience interaction, but I find that really terrifying as I like knowing what to do,” she says.
“The not knowing is not something that’s enjoyable for me, I don’t go, ‘Oh I can’t wait to see what happens’ – I just find it really terrifying. So it always comes back to writing. I always have some kind of safety net where I know where it’s going to end but in the middle I can play a bit.”
Celia’s thirst to know what was going to happen next soon lead her to many years of seeing a psychic – the topic of her last show. Interestingly enough her “addiction” all started with her first trip to America with her mother.
She was 19 in San Francisco and, one thing lead to another, she was soon sitting in a room with a psychic who told her she was cursed – Celia soon found that America is rife with scammers. 10 years later and a show resulted from the reoccurring visits.
“It always made me feel better because it was someone who looked like they’d know, telling me that everything was going to be fine. Whether or not they’re talking bullshit it just feels nice to hear someone say that, and I don’t believe me so I can’t say that to myself,” she says.
“I haven’t been in years now because that’s what the show is about – a palm reader told me something I didn’t like and that sent me on a real journey of examining what I was doing and what really believe about all this stuff. So I’m clean!”
While there’s no one telling Celia what to expect in life anymore, there’s no questioning that her show alongside Tony Martin, Sammy J & Randy, and MC Tina Del Twist is going to be a night full of laughs. Guaranteed.
Written by Amanda Sherring
When & Where: Comedy 4 Karma, Daylesford Town Hall – October 16