She’s most well known for playing the quintessential Aussie hornbag Kim Craig from Kath and Kim, but Gina Riley’s most famous role came about after a lot of trial and error – almost – years of it.
Before her Kath and Kim fame, Riley – as well as her eventual co-stars, Jane Turner and Magda Szubanski – began to make a name for themselves in the comedy skit shows Fast Forward, Full Frontal, Big Girl’s Blouse and Something Stupid.
It was from these shows, as well as the then-rise of reality TV Shows, that the characters of Kath and Kim began to form, not only creating a four season show, but also two spin-off movies – Da Kath & Kim Code and Kath & Kimderella – and even a failed American remake.
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The show’s legacy continues to this day, over 20 years since its pilot episode aired, becoming even more relevant to today’s public than that of the 2000s.
Szubanski, who played Kim’s best friend Sharon in the series, commented in a 2022 interview, “Essentially, Kim Craig nee Day conducts herself as a celebrity.
“That whole cult of celebrity was beginning then, and of course we’re now right in the peak of it, so the show was just created at the perfect moment. That was great instinct on Gina’s part.”
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Riley added: “It is so fun as Kim to tap into that incredibly selfish adolescent part of yourself, because it’s still there, which is why I think it resonates with people today.
“There’s something absolutely liberating about that.”
But soon after she had wrapped up the filming of the last ever Kath and Kim project, Kath and Kimderella in 2012 Riley vanished from the spotlight.
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In 2013, she revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. However, doctors had thankfully caught it early and Riley was able to make a full recovery.
Throughout the following years, though she made appearances here and there on stage as she continued her musical career in plays such as Into the Woods, Chicago, and Sweeney Todd – she rarely made any as herself.
Even at the peak of their fame, both Riley and Turner only really made appearances as their iconic characters.
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In 2018, she finally revealed the reason why.
“I’m totally boring in everyday life,” she shared, adding that her calling as a comedian made it so she and Turner are “more observers. We are not people who super belong.”
“As I get older, I really don’t want to be a public person, which sounds ridiculous with what I do,” she admitted.
She now spends her days with her husband Rick McKenna, who was also the producer of Kath and Kim, as well as their adult child, Mac McKenna, who also took the stage in Muriel’s Wedding the musical and Dear Evan Hansen in the US, among others.
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But Riley put on Kim’s signature g-string one last time to portray her, along with the rest of the cast, in a 20th anniversary special, Kath and Kim: An Effluent Life.
Airing in 2022, the special revived the characters just enough to show the audience where they are now, with behind-the-scenes and deleted footage, as well as reflections from the cast on what the show meant and its enduring legacy.
“The only way we thought we could do it was bringing us back together,” she said, “And in the end, it was a really good decision because when you do a show, you never know what’s going to be the end, and then it sort of ends and you go, “Oh, well, that was that.”
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