Kate Jenkinson

Today I'm going to be learning about the actress Kate Jenkinson. I feel like she keeps popping up on Australian shows I've watched. Though that might be a bit of an exaggeration. It's really only four. Still, that might be the most shows I've seen with the same actor. No...that might not be true. I think I've seen Kat Stewart in four different shows.

What stands out in my mind, though, about Jenkinson is I've never seen her in a starring role...not really even in a co-starring role. It's more like she's a character actress in the shows I've seen her in.

The first time I saw her was on Offspring. She played Patrick's sister. Then I saw her in The Staits.  She played the ex-wife of a man in a smuggling family. Next I saw her in Tangle, where she played an ageist bitch that hurt the feelings of Kat Stewart.  Last, but not least, I saw her in House Husbands. She plays a preschool teacher who has an inappropriate moment with one of her student's fathers.

Right now, My Aussie Hulu shows are The Elephant Princess and the current season of Neighbours.  I wonder if I'll see Jenkinson on either of these. Well, I guess I'll find out today when I look at her filmography.

I'm also wondering if Jenkinson has been in anything where she's had a more substantial role. Or is she more of a character actress?

Well, I look forward to learning more about her.

I'm going to start with her biography on IMDb.

It says here that her nickname is Jenko. That's cute.

She's five feet, eight inches. That's pretty tall (1.73 meters). Or at least it's taller than me.

Jenkinson graduated from WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts).

According to the trivia section, in the last few years, she's been flown out to Hollywood multiple times to test for various roles.  She finally got something called Super Fun Night.  I'm not sure what that is. A movie? A TV Show? A successful TV show?  I shall find out more later, I suppose.

Now I'm going to look at Jenkinson's filmography on IMDb.

Just as a reminder: I'll be ignoring one time guest star appearances on TV shows...unless it's a show I've watched before. And I also usually skip movies if I can't find any information about them outside of IMDb.

So...what's Jenkinson's first screen thing?

It was a TV show called The Wedge which was on in 2006 and 2007.  She was on 48 episodes, playing various characters. I'm guessing it was a sketch comedy type thing.

I'm looking at the cast. Rebel Wilson was also one of the stars. She's the one from Pitch Perfect and I think also Bridesmaids.  I'm looking at Wilson's filmography now. She's going to be in the next Kung Fu Panda movie.

Oh! And she was also in the Super Fun Night thing.  I'm tempted to look at that now, but I'm going to keep myself in suspense.

Back to Kate Jenkinson and The Wedge.

Lord Wiki confirms the show was sketch comedy.  And he says it's unique, because all the sketches take place in the same town; and in the sketches, there's often references to past sketches. That's kind of cool.

Here's a clip from the show. I'm not sure if Jenkinson will be in it. I do see Rebel Wilson, though.

The canned laughter is annoying...maybe because I'm not laughing with it. Although I might be more conscious of it, because I saw Lord Wiki mentioning it.  That being said, canned laughter does annoy me sometimes.

Kate Jenkinson wasn't in that clip.

I think I shall move on.

In 2008, Jenkinson was on the TV show Bogan Pride. I think I've heard of it. It sounds familar.

And guess what. Rebel Wilson is in this show too. So, she and Jenkinson have worked together at least three times. I wonder if they're friends.

Lord Wiki says the show was created by Rebel Wilson. So I'm guessing she's at least somewhat fond of Jenkinson.

Here's a trailer for Bogan Pride.

Jenkinson can be seen at :07.

And here's part of an episode.

Jenkinson can be seen starting at :32; and she's singing. Yeah...I think I saw it mentioned on IMDb that it's part musical.

Then there's more Jenkinson scenes at 6:47. I'm seeing that, on this show, she plays a popular-bitch-in-a-clique type person.  It's funny, because I'm used to her playing a super nice person...minus the time she was bitchy to Kat Stewart on Tangle.

It turns out there's a fifth show I've seen Jenkinson in, but I don't remember it. She was on Rush...two episodes in season one and two episodes in season two. I would have have seen the first season episodes. Why don't I remember?

I'm going to look at one of the episodes on Hulu.

It's the episode with Brick from McLeod's Daughters.

It's kind of a pain skipping through this, because of the commercial breaks. I'll just leave it on in the background as I move onto something else.

I remember her now! I looked at the description on the Australian Television website. Jenkinson played a woman who crashes her car into a cop car.  She's very flirtatious. I think maybe she starts dating one of the characters. I kind of forget which one.

In 2009, Jenkinson was in Tangle and a show called Satisfaction. I'm not sure which came first.

Well, I guess I can look.

Satisfaction came first. She was in an episode of that in January.  It's about a brothel. Jenkinson appeared in two episodes of the second season and two episodes of the third.  She played a character named Jemima. I'm trying to find out more about her on the Australian Television site, but I'm not having much luck.

As for Tangle,  Jenkinson appeared in one episode in the first season. That's when I saw her. If I watch more seasons of Tangle,  I shall see her in two episodes of season two and three episodes of season three.  Hey! That's kind of neat. She's in one episode of season one, two episodes of season two, and three episodes of season three. If there was a fourth season, maybe she would have been in four episodes.

In 2010, Jenkinson began appearing on Lowdown as Samantha. I think I've heard of that show before.

Or maybe not. The page on IMDb doesn't look familar to me.

Geoffrey Rush was the narrator of the show. I wrote about him a few years ago. Maybe I encountered it then.

Or probably not. Actually, I think I wrote about Geoffrey Rush in 2009.  So it would have been before Lowdown.

Lord Wiki says the show is a comedy about celebrity journalism. I wonder if it was any good.

What next? Jenkinson's filmography is a bit confusing, because of how IMDb does TV shows—ordering it from when shows ended rather than when they began.

But anyway.....

In 2011, Jenkinson was in Killing Time.  It's a ten episode crime drama starring David Wenham. Jenkinson was in the first six episodes.  I wonder if her character was killed off the show.

Here's a trailer for the show. Maybe Jenkinson is in it.

The guy walking behind Wenham at :14 kind of looks like Paul Reiser.

There's a blond girl shown very fast at around :50. I don't think it's Jenkinson. It actually kind of looks like Elizabeth Shue.

Maybe it is Jenkinson. I'm having trouble finding out. I've paused and rewinded about three times.

Another blond woman is shown at 1:28. Again, very quickly. It might or might not be Jenkinson.  I need faster eyes and a faster brain.

And I need to feed our cat. I almost forgot to do that. But don't worry. I'm only about 4 minutes late. I usually feed him between 9:30 and 10:00.  It's 10:04. Still, he's probably crying about that.

No...actually he wasn't. Surprisingly.  But he did seem pleased to get his food.

Jenkinson was in The Straits in 2012.  This is the one in which she was the in-law of a smuggling family.

Here's a trailer for the show. Maybe Jenkinson will be in it.

Well, I think that's her dancing at :15.

Holy shit. I feel so stupid right now.  I don't think I realized that Firass Dirani was in that show. Really! How can that be?  A few weeks after watching The Staits, I started watching House Husbands.  When I saw it, I remembered Dirani as being the guy I saw a few years back in Packed to the Rafters.  But I never thought...oh yeah, and he's also the guy I watched a few weeks ago in The Straits.

What the hell? How could I not have known that?

Did I not recognize him in The Straits?  You know, I don't remember watching The Straits and thinking oh...that's the guy from Packed to the Rafters.

Strange!

Back to the trailer....

Or maybe I did recognize Dirani but then forgot that I saw him in The Straits; just like I forgot that I saw Jenkinson in Rush.

My brain perhaps is full to capacity when it comes to Australian actors.

Back to the trailer (again!).  Jenkinson shows her pretty face at 2:05.

And again at 2:35. And she appears briefly somewhere between that. She's in a house that's being attacked by bullets.

In 2012, Jenkinson also appeared in two episodes of Home and Away.  Her character's name was Mackenzie Watson.

Lord Wiki's cousin says Mackenzie was a character from Melbourne.  She was helping to hide a character named Kyle. People came looking for him, and she pretended he wasn't there.

Wait. Shit. Rewind.  I messed up on the filmography.

We gotta go back to 2011. That's when Jenkinson started working on Offspring.  She was in 23 episodes.  Season four is where she was seen the most. For that, she had 11 episodes. And the last of those episodes were incredibly sad.

Now back to 2012. This is also the year that Jenkinson appeared on House Husbands. I see here, though, that she doesn't come back for season two.

Now I think I can go to 2013. Here we have The Time of Our Lives. I think I've heard of that.  Yes. I should have, because Justine Clarke is the star, and I wrote about her.

Jenkinson appeared in seven episodes of that, playing Eloise.

Here's a trailer for the show.

It's a trailer, but it also has statements from the actors about the show. Does that still count as a trailer?

Well...if anything, it's a promotional video. I'll call it that.

The show's about parenting. Justine Clarke talks about how parents are heavily scrutinized these days.  That's very true!

I think these days we're more obsessed with our kids and our role as parents. There's probably good and bad in that. The good is we try harder to be good parents. The bad is we become uptight about it, and we judge other parents.

I didn't see Jenkinson in the trailer.

Wait. I have to back up again. Oops.

So...in 2012, Jenkinson was in an American TV movie called Fatal Honeymoon.  It's about those American newlyweds who had that incident in the Great Barrier Reef. The bride drowned, and it seems the groom caused it to happen.

Jenkinson played someone named Kim Watson.

Oh. Okay. The newlyweds were Watsons. So maybe Kim is a sister?

Actually, this article says that Gabe Watson (the suspect) married a Kim. Their article talks about how some people think she resembles the deceased wife.

Here's a trailer for the movie.

The trailer is buffering a lot. I don't know if there's a problem with the trailer, YouTube, or our internet.

The bald dad on House Husbands is in the movie!

So far I'm not seeing Jenkinson.

Now I'm back to 2013, and I'm finally going to look at Super Fun Night.

It's an American show filmed in Los Angeles.

The last episode was on February 9 of this year.  There's been two seasons. I wonder if it's coming back for a third.  And what network is it on?

Lord Wiki says it was on ABC, right after Modern Family. And no, it's not coming back.

The show was about single women. I'm looking at the cast. I'm wondering if there were more Australians besides Wilson and Jenkinson.

No, it looks like most everyone else is American. There are a few British people as well; and a Canadian.

I just had breakfast with Jack, and he showed me this really strange video.  It's called Doctor Who-The Average Face of the Doctor.  It morphs all the Doctor faces into one, but not just that. It combines all the classic Doctors and all the 21 century Doctors. And there are other interesting combos as well.

Yeah. I should get back to Super Fun Night.

Here's the trailer for the show.

It didn't make me laugh out loud, but I smiled at a few parts. It looks kind of good.  I didn't see Jenkinson, unfortunately.

According to Lord Wiki's cousin, on the show, Jenkinson plays a beautiful lawyer.

In 2015, Jenkinson is going to be on a TV show called Hiding. It's Australian, so she must have returned from America.

Lord Wiki says it's a drama about a family in the witness protection program.

Well, I'm done with the filmography. I'm going to take a break and then I'll look at some other stuff.

Here's a short article about Jenkinson being on Super Fun Night.  It says the show was criticized in the US for too many fat jokes.  Jenkinson defends the show and Rebel Wilson. She says, What I like about Rebel's style of comedy is she never plays the victim ... she's never been fazed by her shape, it's just the way it is. She would mock her appearance whatever she looked like.

I like self-deprecating humor, and I respect people who use it. Although sometimes, I do think people can take it too far. There gets to a point where it seems the person is doing it out of a desperation to be accepted.  Look. I know I'm this way and it makes you feel a little uncomfortable. But come on. Relax! You can laugh at me. I'm laughing at me! We can all laugh at me.

And actually. I think that mindset is good. It IS a good way to get people to relax and feel more comfortable with each other. It's just when it goes too far, I stop relaxing and laughing. Instead I feel myself cringing.

Now I'm not saying this would be the case for Super Fun Night. I have no idea.  But I'd rather see a show with fat jokes that stars a fat person, and she's shown in a positive light.  RATHER...than shows where the thin stars of the show make jokes and treat the overweight person as being subhuman.  I can't think of specific examples, but I've seen it before.  The idea is the main character is unlucky because he or she has been partnered or somehow forced to interact with someone who is not thin and beautiful.  I sometimes wonder about the actor who takes this role. How do they feel playing the "unattractive" and unwanted character?  Are they just relieved and excited to get a job period?  I imagine they must have some mixed feelings.

I didn't see this on IMDb.  Jenkins was on Thank God You're Here. That's a fun show.

Here's a clip.

The announcer guy said she's appeared on the show many times. Why didn't I see that on IMDb? Maybe it's in the section where they list shows in which the actor appeared as themselves.  I usually forget to look at that.

I'm looking now. IMDb says she was only in two episodes.

She was also on a show called Agony Aunts.

Jenkinson is wearing a corset for Thank God You're Here.  She says she can't breathe. It's like that girl from The Seven Little Australians. Or do I have the wrong book?

I'm pretty sure I'm thinking of the right thing....

So far, this Thank God You're Here scene seems more awkward to me than funny.

Maybe it will get better.

The Harry Potter references made me smile a little.

I think the name line was quite funny.

Here's a mysterious YouTube video with Jenkinson. It's called "Gaffigan". I guess it's an audition thing? She does some scenes and she turns her body around in the beginning while her height is listed.

Often I'm envious of actors, but sometimes I feel a lot of sympathy for them.  There are times where the profession seems a bit demeaning...like they're watermelons being judged at a country fair. But I guess sometimes the good stuff makes up for it.

The problem is many actors don't get to the good stuff.

Jenkinson is speaking American, so I'm guessing this video was made for getting work here in the US.

I'm seeing from Google that there's a comedian named Gaffigan. I guess it was his TV show she was auditioning for.

Though Lord Wiki doesn't mention him having a TV Show. Maybe it never came to fruition.

Here's a 2013 interview with Jenkinson.  It says Jenkinson IS friends with Rebel Wilson, and they've been friends for quite awhile.  Then Wilson became famous in the US and was nice enough to offer Jenkinson a role in her TV show.

The article says that Jenkinson's Offspring character was supposed to have a major role in the last season of Offspring. But because of scheduling conflicts, Jenkinson was written off the show.  If not for Super Fun Night, what would have happened to Kate Reid? Would she have been in the finale photograph scene? Maybe she could have partnered up with Lawrence the rejected psychologist.

Most of the article talks about Super Fun Night and having more characters on TV who don't fit a narrow definition of beauty.  Jenkinson says, And I guess it just so happens that there’s a message embedded in there which is that you just have to be yourself. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what you weigh, what you choose to eat for dinner.

Yep.

I've been insecure about how I look lately, because as the years go by, I'm losing my physical beauty. But you know what's making me feel better. Doctor Who. The message I'm getting from that show is it's your personality that makes you beautiful or ugly. Or at least personality plays a big part.  When I saw images of the actors on that show, in the past, I didn't seem them as being attractive.  David Tennant looked okay but also kind of odd. I saw Christopher Eccleston in The Leftovers and didn't even notice him. I thought Matt Smith looked quite unappealing, and I dreaded him becoming the Doctor.  I saw a preview of an American show with Karen Gillian and thought she looked really annoying.  It was almost hate at first site.

But after watching all these actors in Doctor Who, I see all of them as being very attractive. They're absolutely beautiful and adorable to me now.

On the other hand.... there are some actors who look very attractive to me. Then I learn more about them...a lot more. And they stop looking so attractive. They actually start to look a bit ugly.

Well, I think I might stop here. I was hoping to find Jenkinson on Twitter and/or Instagram. But I'm not seeing it. There IS another Aussie Kate Jenkinson on Twitter—a writer living in London.  She has a cute pink typewriter as her icon photo.  If I got to know the pink typewriter, it might become even more attractive to me.  Or less so. It would probably frustrate me and become ugly. I think computers are so much easier to use.


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