EXCLUSIVE: Emma Watkins on the launch of Emma Memma, farm life with husband Ollie, and her beautiful friendship with Lachy Gillespie

Towards the end of last year, Wiggles fans were shook when Emma Watkins announced she was hanging up her yellow skivvy for good.

Taking to Instagram in October 2021 to break the news and explain her reasons for leaving, Emma wrote:

“The time has come for me to pass the yellow skivvy on,” she began.

“Like many people around the world, the pandemic has given me time to reflect on what is important in life. For me, that means spending more time at home, something that I didn’t realise I was missing out on being away eight months of the year on tour, but something that I have really cherished over the last 18 months.”

Almost one year later, Emma has launched a new children’s character, called Emma Memma who comes to life using sign language, choreographed dance narratives, gesture, mime, singing, speaking, listening, making craft and drawing.

Earlier this year, Emma married Oliver Brian. The couple met when Oliver working as a backup musician for The Wiggles. The pair now live and work together on Emma Memma in the NSW Southern Highlands.

Bounty Parents spoke to Emma about her new project and what life looks like for her now.

Congratulations on the launch of Emma Memma and the album reaching the number one spot on the iTunes chart.

Thank you, I’m shocked! It probably feels quite quick for some people. In the last year, we’ve learned so much and we’ve had so much more time to create and collaborate with our friends in the deaf community and that has really changed the way that we’ve approached this particular project.

After leaving The Wiggles was there always a plan to stay in children’s entertainment?

Not particularly, my PhD has always been there. I was hoping to learn more and discover what we might be lacking in media for children that need a lot of visual communication options. The Emma Memma character came about this year. We understand most of our audience has a mixture of communication forms at home. A lot of children who are deaf are born to hearing parents so you’ve got this situation where visual communication is key. But for parents who are hearing they may have never seen sign language. We’re hoping through our very simple songs, that we’re able to encourage parents to learn the signs as well.

Also, for Emma Memma, the predominance of dance seems to be an even ground for everybody to join in. Dance is such a big part of my life and I’m happy to have that as a main driver of this project. Dance is a visual communication and is used by many different children and families.

Was it tricky to decide on the look of Emma Memma? I love the orange and pink colours.

That may have been the easy part! I love apricot colours and for this character to be developmentally appropriate we wanted to make sure the colours were bright but had a spectrum of shades whether they were orange, pink, and purple and green. Orange is such a bright and happy colour. We thought butterflies would be a a significant symbol for us to include as they are used around the world for many different communities that use sign language, as butterflies have very sensitive hearing skills.

You wore a wig for Emma Wiggle’s trademark pigtails, will you wear a Emma Memma wig?

It will probably be a bit of both. Most of the filming we’ve been doing is with a wig that emulates my natural bright red and curly hair. When the weather is hot or humid a wig can be really helpful. It’s nice to be able to represent my natural hair type and I’ll have the option to wear my natural hair with the with the character too.

Before creating the character, was Emma Memma your nickname?

Friends and family call me Memma. I also noticed over the past decade children would actually refer to me as Memma because there was confusion over mama and Emma. We thought it might be better to lean into the M consonant sound. It’s also one of the first sounds that is produced in spoken language and hence why we just combined it to be Emma Memma.

We loved watching you on The Masked Singer. What was it like to perform on the show?

It was amazing and something I never thought I’d ever do or have the opportunity to do, mostly because I love dancing. When the opportunity presented itself, initially I was like, ‘Oh, no!’ because I get very anxious singing. The Masked Singer was out of my comfort zone and singing songs that weren’t necessarily for a children’s audience, I did start to worry. But, I was very happy to be in the Zombie outfit because it became very much her character.

Do you still keep in touch with Lachy?

It has been lovely to chat to Lachy. When we released the Emma Memma album he messgaed straightaway and was like, ‘My favourite is Green Planes’ and I said to him, ‘I actually knew that was going to be your favourite’. It’s a very Lachy song because it’s a ballad and it’s calm and soft. From my time at The Wiggles, most of my singing consulting was done by Lachy because I hadn’t had any vocal training and certainly no where near the level that he has had.

Lachy is naturally a born singer; he’s so musical. His experience helped me so much. When it was announced that I was the Zombie, he called straight away. He’s like, ‘Why? Oh my gosh, how did you do it?’ It was lovely. Obviously I didn’t want to keep it a secret but that’s the premise of the show. It was a fun surprise to reveal to Lachy at the end.

It’s really lovely to continue our friendship. We are supportive of each other and in each of our endeavours. I’m so proud of him.

Compared to life in The Wiggles where you spent so much time touring, what’s a day in your life like now?

Ollie and I moved from Sydney to the country and so my day now starts with feeding my goats. I have two goats and they’re on a wildlife sanctuary of about 20 rescue goats, pigs, wombats and wallabies. It has been so nice to be here in regional New South Wales in the Southern Highlands for the past eight months and be surrounded by the native flora out here in the bush.

After I feed the goats, Ollie and I will start recording and workshopping our content. We will usually jump on a Zoom with our Auslan consultants and will converse with people, not just in Australia but overseas too. Sometimes in the afternoon I’ll do an online ballet class with my friend. I try and fit in something like walking the dogs, ballet or yoga. I have enrolled in my diploma of interpreting Auslan and I am doing that at the same time as the PhD to gain more knowledge in the interpreting space. It has been really helpful to understand more about the translation process and what’s really important for Auslan culture.

Are you enjoying the slower pace of farm life, especially after all the years spent touring? 

Now that we’ve been here in this space we have the opportunity to be able to workshop and write all the music from home and have time to workshop things which is amazing. The pandemic has really given us an opportunity to connect with people wherever they are, wherever they’re based and so we’re really grateful to have the time to do that.

I don’t think I really realised that I still needed to let my body rest since recovering from endometriosis and my laparoscopy surgery. Now that I’ve had a step back I’m like, ‘Oh, my body feels even better now’.

What’s it like working with Ollie?

Ollie is a music genius. He has written and recorded every single song from the Emma Memma album on his own. He plays every instrument whether that’s a mix of computer instruments and live. One reason we moved out of Sydney was so we could have a little bit of space to record music at home. Having a mini recording studio has changed our lives. Being able to record at any time of the day has really changed the way our creative workshopping happens. Ollie is so musically inclined and has been researching what’s important for children in a musical sense, like what is catchy and the appropriate tempo and is the sign language to fast to this music, all of these kinds of questions have been at the forefront of all of the tracks.

Some couples would drive each other crazy living and working together. How do you and Ollie manage? 

We thrive when we’re together and it’s weird when we’re not together. We’re most creative when we’re with each other and having this time together and being in the country where everything’s very quiet, has given us time to focus on each other and also the music and the content that we’re trying to bring to everybody. It has been lovely. We’re better together.