Ankle-deep in the Indian Ocean, Natalie Barr looks off into the horizon. The co-host of the Seven Network’s breakfast show Sunrise is catching, well, the sunset at Cottesloe Beach, Western Australia – one of her favourite places. When she left the family nest in the port city of Bunbury to study journalism at Curtin University (then called the Western Australia Institute of Technology) in Perth, Barr recalls that this shoreline, and the nightlife nearby, became the backdrop to an idyllic time.“In Western Australia, the ‘Sunday session’ is famous,” she tells Stellar. “It used to start about four in the afternoon and go to maybe nine at night. It wasn’t a Sunday without a Sunday session in summer. “There’s a famous pub called the OBH – the Ocean Beach Hotel – which was a bit worse for wear then, with big open windows out to the ocean, and that’s how you used to wrap up your weekend.” Taking photos in her home state has allowed Barr a rare moment of devil-may-care reminiscence, especially since, in contrast to her fellow breakfast television hosts (past and present) such as Lisa Wilkinson, Samantha Armytage and Karl Stefanovic, Barr will mark 20 years on Sunrise next year without so much as a gossip item written about her, much less a scandal to her name.But lest anyone peg her as merely a quiet achiever, the former newsreader elevated to the top job because she’s a known quantity. Barr projects nothing but assuredness during her Stellar cover shoot, hurrying to swap frocks before the light fades and embodying the casual ease of her WA upbringing even as she models fashion-forward designer gowns. “I felt so proud standing on one of the best beaches in Australia, and it was really stacking on a show,” she says, crediting the Stellar crew for working like demons to get the shot before the Fremantle Doctor – the name locals have given the late afternoon breeze – blew in. “Most of us have a soft spot for where we come from,” she reflects, “but going back and doing something like that just made my heart sing. There will always be that tug in the heart, remembering where you grew up and how you were raised. I’ll never get that out of my system.”After spending her childhood and university years in Western Australia, Barr, 54, saw her career flourish as a news writer in the US, then at the Seven Network in the mid-1990s. With ties to both coastal Bunbury and metropolitan Sydney, she may seem right out of central casting for a national breakfast show. However, with two sons galloping into adulthood, a widowed mum she was prevented from seeing during much of the pandemic and a pesky health issue of her own, Barr says she isn’t just relatable to viewers. She’s one of them. “You’ve got to look at your audience,” she states bluntly. My 16-year-old isn’t necessarily getting up and flicking on the TV in the morning.“A lot of our audience, they’re me. They have families, they’re worried about their jobs [and the] cost of living, how they’re going to pay the mortgage or the rent, their parents may be in aged care, and they’re worried about how they’re going to get through the day sometimes.”Equally, she says, they tune in for fun, whether that’s entertainment or fashion. “You can be interested in serious stories and a lot of fun stuff as well.”Barr is chatting to Stellar just days after the shoot in a meeting room at the Seven Network, next to the small, windowless office she shares with David “Kochie” Koch. It’s a space hardly befitting the network stars whose faces are plastered on posters throughout the building. Barr shrugs it off. “Kochie’s in after me because he’s got less hair and needs less make-up, and then after the show we might be here for an hour or two,” she says. Her main work is done downstairs in the studio where she has co-hosted with Koch for just over a year. “I feel like it’s mine now,” she says of the role she stepped into after the exit of Armytage. “I feel like I own the space. Whenever you take a step up in any job, you’re a bit reticent but now I don’t feel like that. I feel comfortable.”Even though she’s been working on Sunrise for 19 years – she started when her now 20-year-old son Lachlan was aged just 18 months – Barr has had to adjust from reading the news to hosting. “When I was filling in, I was probably concentrating too hard on doing a good job,” she admits. “But I think you have to live in the moment. You have to react to stories as they’re happening. You have to bury your head and your heart in it and when it’s finished, you switch to the next topic. “You can’t be thinking too far ahead or you won’t be listening and the hardest thing to do on that set is to listen.” For a girl who built her career on hard graft and tenacity, relying less on research and more on instinct and personality is paying off. After years of swirling speculation around hosts at both Sunrise and the Nine Network’s Today show, the so-called “breakfast wars” seem to have reached a détente, the line-ups at both shows firmly bedded enough so that the hosts can get back to telling stories rather than being the focus of them. “We just want to do our job, all of us on that desk and all of us behind the desk,” Barr says, “because it’s fast-paced and exciting and really different every single time.”The quest for variety is what led Barr to put her hand up to cover the Oscars in March, even if it led to headlines suggesting she’d been snubbed by the stars, and critics claiming she looked “awkward” trying to grab an interview with Venus Williams. She laughs it off, pointing out how difficult it is for foreign media to work the red carpet. Besides, she had a fantastic time, chalked up a new experience, and doesn’t care about detractors. “Did I lose sleep about that? Absolutely not,” she insists. “I had a great time. I’m one of those people [who] if they ask me to do something, I’m up for it. As you age, you get more comfortable in your skin. You get more comfortable in your opinions and it’s totally fine if people disagree with you.”In fact, Barr says agreeing to disagree should be our new catchcry.“We need to bring back different opinions, respectful opinions, and I think that comes with age and experience. Isn’t that what ‘adulting’ is all about? “I think we need to go back to how we all grew up, when people wrote respectful letters to the editor going, ‘Dear Sir or Madam, I strongly disagree with… ’ Now it’s got out of hand.” Even a decade ago, middle-aged women in high-profile roles may have feared a cut-off date, but diversity and common sense have put paid to that. What that means for Barr and her peers is that they don’t just inhabit but are also able to enjoy the roles they’ve earned. As she tells Stellar, the network must have had faith in her experience to name her a co-host.That said, she concedes she’s still prone to self-examination, often leaving a dinner party wondering whether she’s said the wrong thing. “I think you always have moments where you doubt yourself,” she reveals.“I read stories about people saying once they hit 40 or 50, they’re completely comfortable or confident and at peace with everything. I wouldn’t say that’s me. I still do care about what people think. Maybe it’s 12 years of Catholic school.”Or perhaps it’s a lack of self-satisfaction and an openness to growth that underpins her longevity. Seven’s new head of morning television, Sarah Stinson, traces Barr’s staying power to her having no “bells and whistles” and just getting on with the job. “Nat is set to celebrate 20 years on Sunrise, and it really is a milestone of extraordinary note, especially in the breakfast TV market where finding the right personalities is essential for success,” Stinson says. “Nat can hold a politician to account, she’s happy to take risks, and isn’t afraid to laugh at herself.”With Sunrise still leading the breakfast ratings, insiders have speculated about Koch leaving, but Barr won’t consider his departure. “I think he’ll stay in the job as long as he wants to,” she predicts. “And I hope he does, because I love him and I love having him there.”As for nearly two decades of early starts, Barr says she has flourished as a shift worker by respecting what’s required. Last year, she lost 5kg she says had “crept on”, is about to restart barre exercise classes after battling a frozen shoulder, and rarely extends her 7.30pm bedtime. As she shared on Instagram recently, “Adult friendship is really just shooting off messages like, ‘Yes, hello, I’m not dead yet, can I arrange to see you in four to six weeks?’” To that, she lets out a hearty laugh. “I don’t know whether I’m a very good friend. I can’t catch up midweek. I’ve never been a member of a book club. I feel slightly disconnected, but you can’t say yes to all that stuff and not expect to get sick.” As she explains, she got pneumonia in her second year on Sunrise and was told she’d be susceptible again. It hasn’t returned.What has changed for Barr is her role as a mum. With Lachlan studying at university in Victoria and 17-year-old Hunter deep in his Year 11 studies, Barr foresees a time when she and her husband, film editor Drew Thompson, 54, could be empty-nesters. Until then, more trips out west are on the horizon. “I heard people in Sydney say [during lockdown] that they hadn’t seen their parents for a few months, but that’s normal for us because we’re interstate,” Barr offers. “But it’s made us ensure we will never go more than a few months at a time [between visits] again.”Closer to home, Barr divulges that after 27 years of marriage, she and Thompson still hop on the phone several times a day. “We’re just in each other’s lives. I can’t do anything without talking to him about it first and I think he’s the same. Every part of my life is enmeshed with his; it’s a partnership.” Even as Barr prepares to wrap up her talk with Stellar, she mentions she’ll phone Thompson from the car to discuss how it went. “Having someone to share your life with is amazing,” she says. “I feel really lucky.”
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