T H E R E T U R N O F

TH E LI F E
& TI M E S OF

S O M E R F I E L D SIR
HE IN AG R A M S TA R I S A LL B U S I S
RICHARD
BRANSON
CO
ONQU
NQ
Q U E R I NG
TH E F I NAL
F RONTI E R

MAX I M U M
E X P OS U R E
YEARS
OF BABES, NAKED
PETA GIRL
EVE E ALS H E R
R EVEALS
H I STORY OF
H AP PY F I F TH P U B LIC N U DIT Y
B I RTH DAY
TO US!

JA
JAMES
AMES
S
MAGNUSSEN
USAIN BOLT
ISSUE 61 AUGUST 2016

AUSTRALIA $6.95 INC

GST
MARGOT
ROBBIE
THE HULK’S
PRINT POST APPROVED

TRUE STORY
PP 100003469

THE $40,000
WWW.MAXIM.COM.AU
BOTTLE OF
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CONTENTS

12 MAXIM: THE FIRST FIVE YEARS

WE SHOWCASE SOME OF OUR FONDEST,
SEXIEST AND DRUNKEST MEMORIES FROM
THE FIRST 60 MONTHS OF OUR LIFE SO FAR
24 SPOTLIGHT WE TAKE A LOOK AT THE 78 42
FASTEST MAN IN THE WORLD, USAIN BOLT
28 MARGOT ROBBIE THE EX- NEIGHBOURS
STARLET, TALKS UP THE SUICIDE SQUAD
32 MACHINES THE ASTON MARTIN VULCAN,
PLUS HOW TO WIN A V8 SUPERCAR RACE
42 BAR THE $40,000 BOTTLE OF HENNESSY
44 COVER GIRL INSTAGRAM STAR RENEE
SOMERFIELD RETURNS FOR COVER NO.4

88
54 NAKED REVOLT CONFESSIONS OF A
PETA WORKER AND HER PUBLIC NUDITY
58 SIR RICHARD BRANSON THE
ENTREPRENEUR’S LIFE AND TIMES AND
HIS LATEST VIRGIN GALACTIC VENTURE
66 STYLE BONDI HIPSTERS, CHRISTIAAN
AND NICK, GEAR UP FOR SOUL MATES II
72 SPORT AUSTRALIAN MMA FIGHTER
SOA ‘THE HULK’ PALELEI’S TRUE STORY
OF HARDSHIP, BELIEF AND REDEMPTION
78 LYON’S DEN IN A NEW DOCUMENTARY,
GLOBE-TROTTING PHOTOGRAPHER STEVEN
LYON GOES WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
86 BRILLIANT DISGUISE FROM STAGE
TO SCREEN WITH MICHAEL SHANNON
88 STYLE COOL COMFORT — TAILORED
CUTS OF THE FINEST DESIGNER OVERCOATS
94 GAMES THE ANNUAL ELECTRONIC
ENTERTAINMENT EXPO (AKA E3) REPORT
96 GROOMING HOW TO KEEP YOUR SKIN
LOOKING HOT WHEN THE CHILL SETS IN
98 24 HOURS TO LIVE AUSTRALIAN
OLYMPIC SWIMMER, JAMES MAGNUSSEN
DISCUSSES HIS FINAL DAY ON EARTH

58
TWO GIANT
FOLD-OUT
POSTERS
RENEE SOMERFIELD

8 MAXI M.COM.AU
F
ive years ago this quality magazine, you hold in your hand,
launched in Australia. The signs of big things to come all
started when we featured the perfect Australian woman —
Jennifer Hawkins — on our debut cover. It seems a lifetime
ago but since then we’ve featured some of the country’s finest famous
ladies, film, TV and music stars, sporting heroes, fashion icons, and so
much more. As we celebrate our 5th birthday I thought it apt to at least
present you with my Top 5 highlights of editing MAXIM Australia over
the last 61 editions — in the most generic way possible, of course...

No.1: THE LAUNCH — After months of blood, sweat, tears, multiple

late nights and drunken shennanigans planning and producing our
first issue, it was bloody exciting to see it rolling off the printing press.
No.2: THE WOMEN — We’ve been extremely blessed to work with
some of Australia’s and the world’s most beautiful, sassy, savvy and
MANAGING DIRECTOR:
intelligent women. A big salute to Jen, Delta, Miranda, Fiona, Lindsay, Michael Downs
Sam, Heather, Havana, Candice, Ellie, Sheridyn, Imogen, Jade, Jessica,
Iggy, Sophie, Bar, Yvonne, Malin, Lauryn, Lauren, Laura, Lily, Irina,
Phone +612-7900-6786
Renae, Nicole, and of course, this month’s cover gal —Renee Somerfield. Mail PO Box 230,
No.3: THE PARTIES — Be it birthdays, HOT 100 or Valentine’s Day, our Double Bay NSW 1360
Email maxim@maxim.com.au
MAXIM events are always epic I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything Web www.maxim.com.au
that happened at any of them. I’ll turn to page 12 to refresh my memory! facebook maximau
twitter maxim_aus
No.4: THE STAFF — I wouldn’t be able to do this without the top efforts instagram maxim_aus
of all those listed below. Special shout out to our superb art director youtube maximaustralia

Luke Shaddock, advertising man Drew Haywood and Michael Downs.

Editor-In-Chief Santi Pintado
No.5: THE READERS Last but definitely not least, there wouldn’t be (spintado@nuclear.com.au)
any reason in doing what we do at MAXIM and all this would not be
Art Director Luke Shaddock
possible without YOU, the reader. Your feedback is imperative and your (lshaddock@nuclear.com.au)
loyalty is always appreciated. THANK YOU! Until next month, enjoy this National Advertising Manager Drew Haywood
(dhaywood@nuclear.com.au)
very special issue and keep reading. Marketing Director Natalie Downs

Cheers, Motoring Editor Bill Varetimidis

Fashion Editor Adriana Dib
Groomingeditor Shonagh Walker
Santi Gaming & Tech Writer Chris Stead
Editor-in-Chief Staff Photographer Wayne Daniels

MAXIM WORLD WIDE BRAND LICENSING

Chairman and CEO, Biglari Holdings Inc. Mr. Sardar Biglari

Vice President, International Licensing Jill Tully

Director of Brand Management, Licensing Diana Abehssera
Design Director, Licensing Damian Wilkinson
International Licensing & Publishing Manager Stephanie Marino
Senior Paralegal & Rights Manager Catherine Baxter

© 2016 MAXIM Inc. The name “MAXIM” and the MAXIM logo are registered trademarks of Maxim Media Inc., and used under license by (publisher).
All rights reserved. The United States edition of MAXIM is published monthly by MAXIM Inc. 415 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10017.
For international publishing or licensing inquiries: maximworld@maxim.com.
SPOTLIGHT

W W W . M A X I M . C O M . A U

OUR FIRST FIVE YEARS…

1 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
If you told us 60 months ago that we’d still be alive and kicking many
goals, we’d actually kick you hard in the balls and tell you that you’re
dreamin’, buddy! Turns out we’re still around and to celebrate we thought
we’d give ourselves a big conceited pat on the back by showcasing some
of our fondest, sexiest and drunkest memories from the last five years.
We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed living and breathing them

FACEBOOK/MAXIMAU TWITTER/MAXIM_AUS INSTAGRAM/MAXIM_AUS YOUTUBE/MAXIMAUSTRALIA

MAXI M.COM.AU 1 3

ISSUE 1
A U G U ST
2 0 11
▷ Jennifer Hawkins (4) helps
launch MAXIM Australia to the
world with a sensationally sexy
lingerie feature shoot in a Sydney
hotel, becoming our first-ever
cover girl. #welovehawko
#numberone #perfectchoice
▷ Radio shock jock and Kyle
Sandilands (6) and comedian
Chris Lilley write exclusive
columns for us, sharing their
opinions to whoever is fortunate
enough to read them.
▷ Australia meets the illustrious
MAXIM 5 (2) as we unveil five
of our most beautiful models and
their extra-tight lycra jumpsuits.
▷ Over 500 VIP guests, including
Scott Cam, Kyle Sandilands,
Jesinta Campbell, The Faders,
and a swag of TV, film, music,
fashion, gaming and sports stars,
celebrate into the wee hours at
our official launch party held
at the Museum of Sydney.
1 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
1 4
2 7
3 5
ISSUE 2
S E P TE M B E R
2 0 11
▷ Our second edition cover
girl is the ever-hot Victoria’s
Secret model and actress Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley who
tells us, “The rest of my body
requires a lot of upkeep, but the
lips are the one thing I don’t have
to work on.” Hahaha… ‘upkeep’.
▷ The real-life (not Leo) Wolf
of Wall Street Jordan Belfort
stops by for a chat and an
exclusive interview about his
wealth, women and drugs.
We epically fail to dedicate
our life to mimic his.
ISSUE 3
O C TO B E R
2 0 11
▷ Long before orange was
the new black and taking on
Hollywood, former Aussie TV host,
DJ and actress Ruby Rose (5)
reveals her naked ambition for
us in an exclusive cover shoot
posing nude in a controversial
feature for PETA. Baring all,
Ruby only wears an assortment
of wigs complimenting her
faultless naked body while
showcasing her anti-fur crusade.
Still one of her most daring
covers to date.
ISSUE 4
NOVEMBER
2 0 11
▷ Aussie pop star Ricki-Lee
Coulter (7) shows off her new
slim figure in her sexy military-
themed MAXIM cover shoot
where she also reveals her music
comeback with a new single and
tells us all about her love for the
UFC, V8s and rugby. After the
all-day shoot, her strict diet goes
out the window as she heads to
Maccas for a Cheesburger Meal.
Oh, Ricki, you are so fine.
▷ UFC champion Georges
“GSP” St-Pierre chats with
us about his mad skills and
how he psyches himself up
for octagon action. You know,
before he decided to semi-retire,
that is. Comeback looms?
6
8
ISSUE 5
DECEMBER
2 0 11
▷ Best known for her bikini
work, illustrious Sports Illustrated
and Australian model Jessica
Gomes graces our cover — in a
classy topless pose. Revealing her
real and perfectly plentiful chest,
the Perth glamour over-shares
with, “My boobs are growing and
they’re not fitting into sample-size
tops!” How. Dare. They!
▷ The inaugural MAXIM
Awards celebrating excellence
across hotness, sport, humour,
politics, stupidity and heaps
more, sees Shane Warne take
out the Man of The Year gong
and Black Caviar as Woman
of the Year. Bob Katter is Funniest
Man of the Year and Tour of the
Year goes to Cadel Evans’ for
his super Tour de France win.
ISSUE 6
J A N U A RY
2 0 12
▷ A new year sees a new
attitude for our cover girl Lindsay
Lohan and a return to the real
world outside of her usual rehab
stints. We predict 2012 to be
the year of the Lohan but…
hey, look, we can’t get
EVERYTHING right, OK?!
▷ Eddie Murphy’s daughter,
Bria, poses in a hot bikini shoot
poolside in L.A. revealing that
any guy she dates tries to
make her dad laugh. Idiots.
▷ We go shopping with retired
NBA basketballer Shaquille
O’Neal (1) which sees him
spend $75 of his $848 at
Starbucks. Another $167
is spent at Victoria’s Secret.
▷ Singer Katy Perry (3)
dons the leather and lace for
her sexy MAXIM shoot telling us,
“I think my curves are something
to be proud of.” We simply
couldn’t agree more, KP!

ISSUE 7
F E B R U A RY
2 0 12
▷ For her cover feature, Aussie
pop star, radio DJ and talent show
judge, Sophie Monk (11) tells us
that, “Everyone in Australia knows
I’m just a Gold Coast bogan” and
“I love freeballing. Hence the
camel toe photos you always
see of me on gossip websites.”
– all this while looking super-
freaking-hot in her swimwear
shoot on an L.A. beach, of course.
▷ Dancing With The Stars
judge Kym Johnson shows
off her bangin’ body and booty
for her MAXIM shoot.
▷ In our interview with
skateboarding champ Tony
Hawk he reveals that he gave
up playing violin to take up
skating. We guess it kinda
worked out OK for him.
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ISSUE 8
MARCH
2 0 12
▷ Gorgeous Australian actress
Yvonne Strahovski lands her
first MAXIM cover. The star of TV
shows such as Chuck and Dexter,
and films like The Killer Elite and
The Guilt Trip, reveals, “I like a
suave dude with some geek.”
▷ During our chat with NBA
star LeBron James (13) he
asks when his mum can see this
interview, adding, “She’s going
to be delighted to see her son in
the magazine.” We ask if his mum
is a big MAXIM fan to which he
replies, “No. My mother is a big
LeBron fan.” #wegotowned
▷ We let our nuts hang at
the World Testicle Cooking
Championships (14) in Serbia
and try the Bourbon With Balls
cocktail. Naturally.
10
ISSUE 9
APRIL
2 0 12
▷ Mega-cute American actress
Katrina Bowden (from 30 Rock
fame) poses for her first MAXIM
cover and says she keeps her
body looking damn fine by taking
pole dancing classes. Zing!
▷ Hugh Jackman sits down
for a chat and tells us that he
accidentally stabbed himself
in the thigh with his Wolverine
claws on the set of X-Men
Origins: Wolverine. We felt a
little awkward laughing at this.
▷ We take a few of our best
MAXIM models out to a strip club
to see what happens. Clearly we
thought it was a genius story idea
until we forked out $144 on one
round of drinks. All we remember
were the multiple trays of shots.
#rainmakers!
I SS U E 10
M AY
2 0 12
▷ Brian McFadden’s now
ex-fiance, Vogue Williams,
poses in a sexy lingerie and
swimwear cover shoot on
location at Sydney’s Star casino.
▷ In the same issue McFadden
explains, in what the media
end up calling a controversial
interview, how he landed such
a glamourous girl saying,
“I don’t have a big penis so
it’s not that. I must just be
a lucky bastard.” We’ll still
take your word for it, B-Mac.
13
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I S S U E 11
JUNE
2 0 12
▷ Former Miss Universe
Australia, Erin McNaught (12),
celebrates her 30th by posing in
her birthday suit for (still) one
of the best covers in MAXIM
Australia’s five year. Afterwards,
we head to a bar with Erin for a
few hours as she downs Mojitos
and Moscow Mules like they are
going out of fashion.
▷ Former Pussycat Dolls member
Nicole Sherzinger, and now
Lewis Hamilton’s ex, shows the
world she’s definitely still got it in
her feature shoot, making us wish
our girlfriends were hot like her.
You know, it’s the song.
▷ Our Editor-in-Chief, Santi
Pintado does Coachella for the
first time, hangs out backstage
with a few bands, creepily rubs
shoulders with VIPs like Lindsay
Lohan and Paris Hilton and
doesn’t remember a thing
about it. Purple Haze, anyone?
MAXI M.COM.AU
I S S U E 12
J U LY
2 0 12
▷ Big Bang Theory’s Kaley
Cuoco (10) poses for a hot,
exclusive cover shoot and we
and other nerds Australia-wide
are unable to sit down properly
for a month.
▷ In her MAXIM shoot Lady
Gaga (15) reveals, “I’d be a
happy girl if I could make the
whole world gay.” You go girl.
▷ Legendary guitarist Slash
tells us a not-so-big secret
about his past, “I was so high
back then, I was lucky to just
make it out alive.”
▷ We spend a few unsteady
days in Alaska with the Captains
and crew of Deadliest Catch
(9). There was blood, there was
guts and yes, there was karaoke.
▷ The ultimate movie bad guy
and star of the Machete series,
Danny Trejo tells us, “Man, there
ain’t nothin’ better than kissing
Jessica Alba.” Bastard.
1 5
SPOTLIGHT
I S S U E 13
A U G U ST
2 0 12
▷ Australian boxing champ and
TV star Lauryn Eagle (7) helps
celebrate our first birthday by
jumping out of a giant cake in
sexy lingerie for our special cover.
▷ In his 24 Hours To
Live interview, Matthew
McConaughey tells us that he
plans to be buried in his birthday
suit. Makes sense being our
birthday issue and all.
▷ We celebrate our first year
with a big bash at Marquee
nightclub at The Star casino
in Sydney where Lauryn Eagle
gives us a master class is
skolling beers and tequila shots.
1 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
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I S S U E 14
S E P TE M B E R
2 0 12
▷ Israeli Supermodel Bar
Refaeli (4) is our cover,
posing in a sexy topless feature
shoot inside. We learn that all a
man needs to get her attention
is a decent dentist and not to be
a weirdo. And yes, of course this
counts us out! #nochance
▷ We fail at Gladiator School
(2) while visiting The Australian
Stunt Academy on the Gold Coast.
Er... we didn’t say everything was
going to be a highlight here,
did we? Hmmm.
I SS U E 15
O C TO B E R
2 0 12
▷ Former Home and Away
babe turned Hollywood actress,
Sharni Vinson rocks our cover
in lingerie revealing, “Since 2007,
my signature bar order has been
a Wet Pussy.” Yay!
▷ Kourtney Kardashian
(1) shoots for us and instantly
becomes our favourite Kardashian.
▷ Arnold Schwarzenegger
tells us, “It takes balls to be in
politics, and that’s something
most entertainers don’t have.”
Who knew?!
▷ Austrian BASE-jumper and
Red Bull wingsuit-flyer, Felix
Baumgartner, shows us how
he would be the first person to
break the sound barrier without
a machine a few months before
actually doing so.
I SS U E 16
NOVEMBER
2 0 12
▷ Miranda Kerr tops our
inaugural HOT 100 list of
Australia’s hottest women.
▷ We celebrate our HOT 100
issue with a cracking Halloween
party (3) at Sydney’s Marquee
nightclub complete with A380
fuel tank worth of alcohol,
Walking Dead zombies, Sophie
Monk hosting proceedings
and MAXIM babes wearing
the notorious red lycra
jumpsuits, of course.
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I S S U E 17
DECEMBER
2 0 12
▷ Bond girl Bérénice Marlohe
leaves us both shaken and stirred
with her amazing cover shoot
saying, at the time, “A good
Bond girl is a single Bond girl.”
▷ Pop star Ke$HA (5) poses
for us and can’t remember if
she’s ever kissed Katy Perry
but exclaims, “I’ve kissed some
bitches in my life.” Classy.
▷ Creator of The Family Guy
and movies like Ted, Seth
MacFarlane (6) gives us
some sound advice with,
“The most important thing
I’ve learned about women?
Don’t be yourself.” Righto!
I SS U E 18
J A N U A RY
2 0 13
▷ Social media beauty Ellie
Gonsalves poses for her first
MAXIM cover and from all reports
from her successful move to L.A.
it may not be her last!
▷ The 2nd Annual MAXIM
Awards sees Prince Harry take
out the Man of the Year, Alan
Jones the Loser of the Year and
Lance Armstrong the Cheater
of the Year. Was 2013 really that
interesting or were we drunk
when compiling the awards?
Strong possibility of the latter
occurring… more than once.

I SS U E 19
F E B R U A RY
2 0 13
▷ Aussie supermodel Jessica
Hart hits our cover as Australia’s
latest Victoria’s Secret Angel to
walk the infamous catwalk.
▷ We tell readers how to grow a
beard full of live bees. Seriously.
▷ The MAXIM How I Met
Your Mother Valentine’s Day
party (8) goes off at Marquee
nightclub, Sydney, with a lingerie
and pyjama party to end all
parties. There was no time for
slumber here. Well, not until
4am the next day, that is. Ouch.
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I S S U E 20
MARCH
2 0 13
▷ Known for her roles in
Watchmen, and Couples Retreat,
hot little actress Malin Åkerman
(12) strips down to her undies
for a quirky cover shoot which
involved a piano, banana and
a guy in a gorilla suit.
▷ Liam Neeson gives us some
insight into the type of guy he
really is in our interview with him,
saying, “I used to box. That gave
me discipline and a work ethic.
And some broken teeth.”
▷ Jamie Whincup (14) tells
us, “I just get a big buzz from
trying to get the most out of a
mechanical toy.” We’re pretty sure
he’s talking about his V8 Supercar.
▷ We donate a giant $2,000
cheque to Aussie Olympic
swimming champ Stephanie
Rice and her charity for her
role as a contestant in Celebrity
Apprentice Australia. In return she
slips on a red MAXIM jumpsuit.
ISSUE 21
APRIL
2 0 13
▷ Cover girl, actress Adrianne
Palicki, star of films such as
Red Dawn, G.I. Joe: Retaliation
and John Wick gets up close
and personal for her scorching
bikini shoot.
▷ We try showing you how
to be a bedroom superhero
with our first-ever MAXIM
Sex Special. We’re still working
through the list of our own tips.
▷ The NRL Footy Show’s
resident goofball and loose
cannon, Beau Ryan (10), gets
a little more serious and suits
up for a MAXIM fashion shoot.
I S S U E 22
M AY
2 0 13
▷ TV host, and then Celebrity
Splash!, contestant Laura
Csortan smashes out a sexy
swimwear shoot for our cover,
bad back and all. A few weeks
later she had to pull-out of the
show due to said back injury,
a result from too much diving
on the show.
▷ We release a special one-off
stand alone issue all about health
and fitness, aptly titled the
MAXIM Fitness Special.
▷ Rapper 50 Cent tells us
that at his funeral people will be
saying, “This motherf–ker left and
now we ain’t got no money. Who
is going to pay the bills now?”
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14
15
I S S U E 23
JUNE
2 0 13
▷ Sexy star of The Hangover,
Heather Graham, shows she’s
still cover girl material with a
shit-hot shoot. H.O.T.T.I.E.
▷ Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
tells us, “I can’t stop myself from
looking in the mirror and making
my pecs bounce.” Yes, he really
did say this.
▷ We hang out and farewell
The Hangover cast (9) and
their trilogy of humorous films by
chatting to Zach Galifianakis
and Ken Jeong as they pose
with other Bradley Cooper
and Ed Helms for our special
feature shoot.
MAXI M.COM.AU
I S S U E 24
J U LY
2 0 13
▷ The sultry star of Scandal,
Kerry Washington, is all class
for her MAXIM cover as she
showcases her latest flick Django
Unchained. Oh, and in case you
never heard, the ‘D’ is silent.
▷ We rolled with Snoop Dogg
(13) and took him shopping in
L.A. – $848 later he’s purchased
a jacket, T-shirt, jeans and
backpack, given $135 to a
homeless person and spent $400
on Skywalker weed before making
it rain at Skid Row strip club.
Come back and visit any time,
Dogg. #legend
▷ Susan Sarandon’s daughter
Eva Amurri poses in a sexy
lingerie shoot while telling us
that she’s wanted to play a
stripper her whole life.
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SPOTLIGHT
I S S U E 25
A U G U ST
2 0 13
▷ DJ Havana Brown (5) is
our 2nd birthday cover girl — who
reveals in her interview, “Holding
yourself in different positions that
are not exactly that comfortable
is very difficult.” Yes, she is
talking about the poses she
had to go through for her
MAXIM shoot. We think.
▷ Steve Carell tells us the
hardest part about Anchorman
is not laughing and ruining
someone else’s take. We have
the same problem with wit and
sarcasm in the MAXIM office,
Steve-o. True story.
1 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
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4 7
I S S U E 26
S E P TE M B E R
2 0 13
▷ In her first-ever men’s
magazine cover shoot, former
High School Musical star Ashley
Tisdale shares, “I like guys who
have an edge to them.” Oh well,
that counts us out.
▷ We show you how to be a
Beer Pong champion. Don’t act
like you’ve never wanted to know!
▷ Vin Diesel tells us something
we didn’t already know, “I’m not
a goody two-shoes. Put it on
record: I’m a bad boy.”
▷ MAXIM takes a look at what
happens to real meth labs when
they’ve been shutdown… and
the family who gets paid to clean
them up. #breakingbadforrealz
▷ In a ground-breaking editorial
page, we show you how to make
dumplings in a quality piece we
called DIY Dumplings.
I S S U E 27
O C TO B E R
2 0 13
▷ Lauryn Eagle (1) poses for
her second MAXIM cover, this
time looking the strongest she’s
ever been and bloody sexy –
perhaps it had something to do
with that fact she’d just broken
up with her boyfriend. Maybe.
▷ We abseil (3) down a 117m
building in Sydney for charity.
▷ Big Bang Theory’s Kaley
Cuoco fronts the cover of our
MAXIM GIRLS of TV Special.
▷ We spend a day in the life
of the richest man in sport –
former boxing champ Floyd
Mayweather. And yes, this was
before he made Bieber his bitch.
▷ Family Guy’s Peter Griffin
says, “Small children can make
an effective and lightweight
shield if you’re ever in a fight.”
I S S U E 28
NOVEMBER
2 0 13
▷ Jennifer Hawkins tops
our HOT 100 list because…
well, she’s hot. Look at her!
▷ Pop icon Christina Aguilera
gets into some lingerie for her
sexy MAXIM shoot and reveals,
“The one place I don’t need to
be in control is the bedroom.”
▷ Aussie comedian Chris
Lilley tells us, “I don’t really
do impersonations. I’m actually
shit at doing accents, too.”
Yes, we’ve seen Ja’mie:
Private School Girl, mate.
▷ Seth Rogen and his buddy
Evan Goldberg (creators of
This Is The End) tell us how they
want to die… SETH: “During
Sex”; EVAN: “With each other.”
1 2
6
I S S U E 29
DECEMBER
2 0 13
▷ Ellis Gonsalves (2) returns
for her second MAXIM cover
and she’s naked! BOOM!
▷ Dan Aykroyd tells us he
would absolutely allow himself
to be abducted by aliens,
saying, “I’m waiting for them”,
before showing us how to
make his vodka cocktail
A Punch In The Head.
▷ Our Need For Speed
Rivals HOT 100 PARTY (4)
at Marquee nightclub Sydney
is one of our biggest as we
end 2013 with more than
just a bang!
ISSUE 30
J A N U A RY
2 0 14
▷ David Warner’s missus
Candice Falzon (6) reveals
“Being in lingerie isn’t a big
deal for me – I’m more than
comfortable in it.” Her MAXIM
cover shoot is proof enough.
▷ Aussie F1 driver Daniel
Ricciardo tells us “If you
genuinely enjoy what you
do, you’ll have success.” Ah,
so you have to ENJOY what
you do? That’s the rub!
▷ The 2013 MAXIM Awards
sees Miley Cyrus take out
Woman of the Year, Clive Palmer
win Man of The Year, and Kevin
Rudd Wanker of the Year.
▷ Ronda Rousey (7) poses
for topless for her MAXIM bikini
shoot, telling us, “As a girl if you
have sex before a fight it raises
your testosterone.” Noted.
▷ We take on the pubs, clubs
and restaurants of Las Vegas
for a 72-hour Mancation that
spits in the face of maturity,
sobriety and common decency.

ISSUE 31
F E B R U A RY
2 0 14
▷ Three of Australia’s most
popular social media babes – Ellie
Gonslaves, Renee Somerfield
and Sheridyn Fisher (8) – enjoy
a romp in a Sydney mansion pool
as part of their cover shoot and
make the entire country have an
extremely happy Australia Day.
▷ Our Editor-in-Chief and
Associate Ed head to California
(10) to review hotels, restaurants,
bars and other activities. And yes,
there were strip club injuries,
forgetful drinking sessions and
even an al fresco footpath vomit.
Memorable indeed.
I SS U E 32
MARCH
2 0 14
▷ Kyle Sandilands’ girl Imogen
Anthony (12) gets the sexy
leather, giant props and her
bangin’ body out for her
MAXIM cover shoot, which
features her beau er... sitting
between her legs – the image
will explain it. Then she shares,
“I dressed up Kyle as a rainbow
unicorn when he was asleep.”
Makes perfect sense to us.
▷ In what is a slow news
month, we also get a big-wave
surfer dude to show you how
to ride a 100-foot wave.
9 10
I SS U E 33
APRIL
2 0 14
▷ Australia’s hottest UFC
Octagon Girl Kahili Blundell
graces our cover and asks the
question, “Doesn’t everyone
walk around naked when they’re
at home?” We’re free for dinner
at yours on Saturday, KB.
▷ Johnny Knoxville admits
to us, “I love when people film
themselves doing stupid shit, and
I’m glad they’re doing it.” Way
to give yourself a wrap, mate.
I SS U E 34
M AY
2 0 14
▷ Australia’s sexiest supermodel
Nicole Trunfio (9) wears very
little for her cover shoot with us,
just a pair of knickers here and
there and some casual nudity, of
course. She also reveals, “I don’t
mind getting dirty and I’m very
competitive.” Stop it!
▷ Our Editor-in-Chief travels
to New Zealand for the Wild
Foods Festival and... has a shot
of horse semen. At 10am. Sober.
11
12
13
ISSUE 35
JUNE
2 0 14
▷ Renee Somerfield appears
on our cover for the second time
– but solo for the first time – in
a sexy gold bikini shoot and we
give readers the chance to win
a date with her.
▷ Socceroo Tim Cahill (13)
suits up for a fashion shoot
ahead of the 2014 FIFA World
Cup in Brazil.
▷ Scotty Cam talks about
his last day on Earth revealing,
“I’d spend it with my family,
have a couple of beers, and the
last two minutes involve making
love to my wife, so I’d have a
spare minute to chat to her.”
MAXI M.COM.AU
ISSUE 36
J U LY
2 0 14
▷ 2014 MAXIM Australian
Swimwear Model of the Year
Laura Brunskill says, “What
happens on a girl’s night out
stays on a girls night out.” Yep.
▷ Australian Supercross and
Motocross champ Chad Reed
chats to us about injuries,
determination and being
a veteran at the age of 32.
He’s even older now, of course.
▷ Israel Folau (11) tells us his
last words before he leaves the
world would be, “I love youse all.”
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SPOTLIGHT
I S S U E 37
A U G U ST
2 0 14
▷ Geoffrey Edelsten’s ex-lady
Gabi Grecko (1) gets a makeover
for our third birthday special
edition and gets involved with a
seven-layer cake, lots of glitter
and balloons as she shows off
her sweet, scantily-clad body.
▷ Our lucky bastard of an Editor-
in-Chief hangs out and parties
with Candice Swanepoel (2),
Paris Hilton, Vin Diesel, Drake
and many more stars at the US
MAXIM HOT 100 in Los Angeles.
▷ Kevin Hart tells us, “I want
to punch the midget who robbed
me when I was 12 years old.
I really liked that bike.”
▷ Our 3rd Birthday party (4)
at Casablanca nightclub in Sydney
sees Anthony Mundine, Lauren
Brant, Scott Cam, Quade
Cooper and a swag of celebs
sip Patron cocktails and get
on down on the dancefloor.
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3 5
4 7
ISSUE 38
S E P TE M B E R
2 0 14
▷ Gorgeous model and Christiano
Ronaldo’s ex-missus Irina Shayk
graces our cover in an extremely
sexy and tropical swimwear shoot.
▷ Mark Wahlberg tells us
that his deathbed confession is,
“I watch reality TV.” Holy shit.
ISSUE 39
O C TO B E R
2 0 14
▷ Jessica Alba (5) is our cover
girl and her swimwear shoot
proves that she is still as hot as
ever as she reveals, “I’m really
comfortable in my own skin and
I’m not apologising for myself.” No
apology needed, are you CRAZY!
▷ MAXIM TV (6) hits the small
screen for its premiere season
with hosts James Kerley and
Lana Kington bringing you the
best in girls, celeb interviews,
silly talk and some overweight
Ranga doing fitness.
▷ Former Neighbours babe
turned sexy Hollywood bit girl,
Nicky Whelan shoots for
MAXIM and makes us watch
her Hall Pass scene on repeat.
ISSUE 40
NOVEMBER
2 0 14
▷ Iggy Azalea takes out our
HOT 100 list and causes a social
media frenzy by Tweeting that
she would rather have been
photographed by us instead of
an agency image being used.
We tell her we asked her people
and she gets stuck into her
Aussie record label blaming
them for not alerting her to
this fact. Other notable entries
on the definitive list of Australia’s
hottest women include Sunrise
host Sam Armytage at No.3,
Jessica Mauboy at 7 and
Jacki Lambie scraping in at 100.
▷ We release another one-off
edition — MAXIM Woman
of the World Special.
▷ The MAXIM HOT 100 (3)
party at Sydney’s Café Del
Mar goes off with NRL, AFL
and A-league stars attending
along with UFC fighters, TV
dudes and more!
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I SS U E 41
DECEMBER
2 0 14
▷ Former Hi-5! member Lauren
Brant poses in a sexy underwear
cover shoot and cheekily admits,
“My best asset is my smile.
It gets me in and out of trouble.”
▷ In what is the year of
Matthew McConaughey we
chat to him about how MAXIM
has changed over the years and
he agrees, “It looks more current,
not all, ‘Hey, let’s give you hot ass,
boners and beer, but it still has a
good, sexy edge to it.” True, but
there’s still nothing wrong with
boners and beer, Matty.
I SS U E 42
J A N U A RY
2 0 15
▷ Sheridyn Fisher leads
the charge of Australia’s hottest
Instagram girls with a gorgeous
cover shoot in her own swimwear
line. Her second cover, too.
▷ Dave Hughes airs his dirty
laundry in his hilarious interview
with us admitting, “I swear my
wife finishes every sex session
with #snipsnip.”
▷ The 2014 MAXIM Awards
include Sam Armytage as
Woman of the Year and Karl
Stefanovic Man of the Year,
while Epic Fail of the Year award
goes to Tony Abbott’s G20
Summit speech and the Internet
Thing of the Year went to the
Fappening. Enough said. More
importantly, the Booty of the Year
was a tight contest between Kim
Kardashian’s Paper cover and
Nicky Minaj’s “Anaconda” video.

I SS U E 43
F E B R U A RY
2 0 15
▷ The Bachelor contestant
(at the time), and now radio host,
Sam Frost (9) graces our cover,
talks about being dumped by
that Blake bloke, and also reveals,
“A lot of people have seen my
boobs, let’s just say that.”
▷ We go to L.A. to celebrate
Summer and all things Australian
by showcasing four of our hottest
local models and producing
outstanding poolside shoots
at four of the best hotels in
West Hollywood. Thanks for
the memories, Emily, Gemma,
Jessica and Stephanie (15).
▷ In an enlightening interview
with us, Angelina Jolie says,
“Everybody can make a choice
to get back up, fight harder and
not let themselves be taken
down.” Word, Angie.
10 11
I SS U E 44
MARCH
2 0 15
▷ Ultra Tune babes Laura and
Joanna present our 40-page cars
and bikes special. It’s the most
rubber we’ve ever had in MAXIM.
▷ The MAXIM Valentine’s
Day Eve party, sponsored by
Tinder, sees Gabi Grecko and her
then fiancé Geoffrey Edelsten
show up alongside Big Brother
contestants, about 300 single
models and Shane Warne’s
ex-girlfriend Emily Scott (11)
DJing the night away.
13 14
ISSUE 45
APRIL
2 0 15
▷ Unlucky in love, former
Big Brother contestant Jade
Albany (10) is our cover girl in
an amazing swimwear shoot,
divulging, “I’m so over the
cheaters, liars, and all the
‘I’m serious’ men who turn
out to be massive dropkicks.”
▷ Will Ferrell tells us,
“Being funny was a way to
make friends in school.
Or to avoid getting beat up.”
ISSUE 46
M AY
2 0 15
▷ Lauren Brant (7), now a
contestant on I’m A Celebrity…
Get Me Out Of Here!, scores her
second MAXIM cover this time
draped in nothing but a bed sheet
time and saying, “This shoot was
definitely comfortable being in
my bed and was also playful.”
A change from drinking fish
guts and eating buffalo testicles
in the jungle no doubt, LB?!
9
12
15
I S S U E 47
JUNE
2 0 15
▷ Victoria Secret’s model
Candice Swanepoel (8)
relaunches the all-new
MAXIM with an amazing cover.
▷ We chat to Jeremy Piven
who clearly enjoys a MAXIM
interview, saying, “These are some
very interesting questions…
these are bad boy questions.”
▷ Dwayne “The Rock”
Johnson (12) says, “You walk
away from San Andreas thinking
mistakes are OK, we all make
them.” Thank f—k for that!
▷ Singer Jason Derulo tells
us that his last meal would
be, “A Big Mac and fries from
McDonald’s, some Alfredo
Pasta, a big-ass rack of ribs,
warm chocolate lava cake with
vanilla ice cream, and a bowl
of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.”
Something tells us he’d just
popped into Snoop Dogg’s house
prior to his MAXIM interview.
MAXI M.COM.AU
ISSUE 48
J U LY
2 0 15
▷ Renee Somerfield is our
cover girl for a third time as she
hits the million-followers mark on
Instagram. “It absolutely blows my
mind that one million people see
my posts,” she says. If you haven’t
already followed her, do yourself
a favour and check out her Insta
account – @reneesomerfield.
You can thank us later.
▷ Pretty Little Liars actress
Shay Mitchell (13) reveals,
“People ask what it’s like kissing
a woman, as if there’s something
awkward or weird about it.” We
know, right?!!
▷ Vince Vaughn (14) takes our
24 Hours To Live chat seriously
saying stuff like, “What people
are saying over my casket: ‘God,
that man loved to tap dance.’”
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A U G U ST S E P TE M B E R O C TO B E R NOVEMBER DECEMBER J A N U A RY
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▷ Victoria's Secrets model Lily
Aldridge graces our 4th birthday
cover with the absolute glamazon
revealing, “No-one asked me out
in high school.” Idiots.
▷ Charlie XCX shoots for
MAXIM and shares, “It’s not like
I arrive in a new hotel room and
immediately open up Redtube.
But I will if I need to.” Party on!
▷ In our exclusive interview
Shane Warne (2) admits to our
special reporter, and ‘friend’, Laura
Csortan that, “I’m in my prime
now! You get better as you get
older.” We live in hope, Warnie!
▷ Loudmouth UFC champ
Conor McGregor (4) does a
fashion shoot for MAXIM and
says, “My belief is what brought
me here, it’s my most powerful
ally.” Pretty sure he’s not talking
about our shoot.
▷ Former Miss Universe Australia
Renae Ayris (5) celebrates our
Golden Milestone 50th issue with
a sexy swimwear shoot posing
topless with her hands painted in
gold and revealing, “The morning
of this shoot, I danced my arse off
to my ’80s mix tape to get in the
mood.” Yeah ya did.
▷ Aussie supercross/motocross
champion and motorcycle stunt
driver, Robbie Madison, reveals,
“I’d like to think I’m going to
Heaven because I’m living in Hell
right now.” Welcome to our world,
Maddo! Welcome to our world.
▷ Australian social media
sensation and fashion blogger
Mimi Elashiry models her new
fashion label Cheeky Swim for
her MAXIM cover shoot telling
us, “I’m really at my happiest
basking when I’m salty and
basking in the sun.”
▷ Former host of The Voice,
House Husbands star and Scottish
TV presenter, Darren McMullen,
has a ball during his MAXIM
fashion shoot at a swanky hotel
suite. So much so, in fact, that
he ends up moving into the room
for a few months before heading
back to L.A. where he resides.
▷ Delta Goodrem (7) is our
No.1 in our HOT 100n definitive
list of Australia’s hottest women
telling us, “I’m all about the whole
package – beautiful on the inside
and outside.” Bless.
▷ UFC’s hottest Octagon Girl,
Arianny Celeste, shoots for us in
a sexy swimwear shoot, sharing
this quality wisdom: “There’s too
many fish in the sea, don’t settle.”
▷ In our interview with Arnold
Schwarzenegger he reveals,
“When you’re a father of two
daughters you learn a lot of how
to be protective.” Funnily enough,
Arnie didn’t share his views on
other forms of protection.
▷ Sam Frost appears on our
cover for the second time in her
career but kicks up a stink in the
media claiming we photoshopped
her bits. As always, Sam, we’ve
never ‘touched up’ your body –
you are naturally beautiful.
Call us sometime.
▷ In his fashion shoot, Aussie
swimming champ James ‘The
Missile’ Magnussen (1) shares
his first world problems with us
revealing, ‘Most of my suits need
to get tailored to fit as I can’t just
buy off the rack given my size.”
▷ Our Need For Speed 2015
HOT 100 party (6) turns out to
be one our most massive ones
to date, as the stars come out
to play. The Bachelor and The
Bachelorette casts drink their
collective weight in booze, while
TBL Familes host Fiona Falkiner
and Australia’s leading plus-size
model, Robyn Lawley join in the
debauchery into the wee hours.
▷ Speaking of The Biggest
Loser (TBL Families) host Fiona
Falkiner (3), she graces our
cover in her sexiest shoot ever,
saying, “I believe it does not
matter what size you are and
that sexy is a state of mind –
I was feeling pretty sexy at
this shoot.” We love you, FF.
▷ Cristinano Ronaldo chats
to us and reveals, “That I am the
best is why I continue to improve.
This is why I achieve so many
great things.” Modest much,
muchacho?
▷ The 2015 MAXIM Awards
sees Mick Fanning as our Man
of the Year (hey, he beat up a
shark!), Nick Kyrgios as Wanker
of the Year (hey, he said bad,
bratty shit about people), Fight
of the Year is Ronda Rousey vs
Holly Holm, and Donald Trump
as Funniest Person of the Year.

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ISSUE 55
F E B R U A RY
2 0 16
▷ Australia’s hottest plus-size
supermodel Robyn Lawley (13)
reveals, “I think it’s fantastic
MAXIM is promoting diversity
in the magazine.” Anything for
you, Robyn.
▷ Quentin Tarantino gives
as a call to tell us, “If you feel
there’s a fight about to go down,
punch first. And make it count.”
Judging from the quality violence
in most of his flicks who are we
to argue?”
▷ During his 24 Hours To Live
interview Ice Cube (12) tells
us that his last meal would be,
“Pussy”, before rapping with our
extremely-white lyrical gangster
(and Editor-in-Chief) Santi
Pintado. If you need a laugh,
check it out on YouTube or the
MAXIM Australia Facebook page.
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MARCH APRIL
2 0 16 2 0 16
▷ As part of her illustrious ▷ We hit the gym with Ultra
cover shoot MAXIM Australian Tune babe, model and budding
Swimwear Model of the Year boxer Parnia Porsche who
Casey Boonstra (9) tells us, works up a sweat for her cover.
“I’d never say never to dating a The 21-year-old tells us, “I’m still
fan or follower. If the right guy young and learning. So, if I can’t
grabbed my attention then why have fun with a guy and be a kid,
not?” Why not indeed. go shoot hoops, play video games
▷ The MAXIM Valentine’s Day or lay around in track pants, then
Warm-up party (14) at Cruise it won’t work out between us.”
Bar Sydney sees 500-plus VIP We’re sold.
guests get down and dusty with ▷ Hilltops Hoods dudes MC
plenty of ‘love’ in the air. Suffa and DJ Debris talk up their
new album and Restrung tour.
ISSUE 58
M AY
2 0 16
▷ Controversial leading lady
of The Real Housewives of
Melbourne, Gina Liano, shoots a
controversial bedroom cover for
MAXIM sharing plenty of wisdom
with us, such as, “I’ve learned so
much about men. They are like
mascara — at the first sign of
emotion they run.” Hmmm.
▷ Aussie comedian Jim
Jefferies sits with us for a
hilarious chat about his final day
on Earth, telling us that his last
words would be, “I’d say to my
girlfiend, it was fun, here’s the
password to my bank account.”
▷ Jemm Moore (8), a beauty
from the small town of Emerald
in Queensland, is crowned the
2016 MAXIM Australian Swimwear
Model of the Year before a
capacity crowd at Shooters
Nightclub in the Gold Coast.
Watch this space.
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ISSUE 59
JUNE
2 0 16
▷ Former Miss Universe Australia
Tegan Martin (10) wows the
world with her latex wardrobe she
wears for her MAXIM cover shoot
and tells us, “One thing I’d advise
men not to do is to have sex with
a girl and then roll over and go to
sleep.” Also, THAT booty, Tegan!
▷ During his interview
Hollywood’s long-lasting leading
man, Michael Keaton, shares
plenty of acumen with us like,
“If you’re thinking about trying to
be cool, you’re pretty much f—ked.
Hopefully you manage to figure
out what a silly thing that is to
worry about.”
MAXI M.COM.AU
ISSUE 60
J U LY
2 0 16
▷ Ultra Tune babe and MAXIM
cover girl Laura Lydall tells us
about her overseas escapades
which involve standing out at a
David Copperfield show in Vegas
as the magician stared at her
cleavage during one of his tricks.
▷ MAXIM cover girl, and 2015
Australian Swimwear Model of the
Year, Casey Boonstra cleans up
at the K-Model Awards in Seoul,
Korea, winning the MAXIM World
Rising Star award and Model Star
Award at the Asia Model Festival.
▷ Former NRL star, and Fox
Sports commentator, Braith
Anasta (15), talks retirement,
fatherhood and finding the perfect
suit as part of his slick MAXIM
fashion shoot.
▷ Jimmy Barnes (11) takes
us through the ins and outs of
making his latest album Soul
Searchin’ track-by-track.
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2 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
 GOLD RUSH
He’s already the fastest man in the world, but at the Rio Olympics, this month, Usain Bolt is gunning for
an unprecedented triple-gold three-peat that could cement his status as the greatest sprinter to ever live
BY TI M STR U BY

A
s a kid growing up in the tiny
Jamaican village of Sherwood
Content, which offers little in
the way of traffic lights or
reliable running water, it was the game
of cricket, not track, that became Usain
Bolt’s first love. Early in the morning
he’d watch the sport live on TV with his
father, huddled around a tiny set in his
bedroom, then spend hours on the
cricket pitch after school. So when Bolt’s
high school cricket coach broke the news
to him early on that his preternatural
speed might be better suited for the
track, it took some convincing, and long
talks with his father, for Bolt to put aside
his dreams of cricket glory and give
running a shot.
He was unusually tall for a sprinter
— eventually landing at 196cm — and it
meant he wasn’t able to generate the
short, quick strides needed for a speedy
start. But once Bolt cleared the blocks,
his rare combination of stride length and
leg strength proved to be a secret
weapon. Where other sprinters might
need 44 steps to complete the 100
metres, Bolt required just 41, making the
distance, in effect, shorter for him. With
the help of his high school track coach,
Pablo McNeil, who also happened to be
a former Jamaican Olympic sprinter, the
tall kid from Sherwood Content soon
began to stand out on the local circuit.
By the time he got to the 2001 Carifta
Games, an all-Caribbean track-and-field
competition that’s historically served as
a breeding ground for Olympic hopefuls,
the rest of the world started taking
notice, too. Before the race, Bolt says, he
was nervous as hell. “It was my first time
representing my country.” But when it
was over, the then 14-year-old came
away with a pair of silver medals and,
perhaps more important, the confidence
that he could one day run faster than
any other human in history.
With each new competition he
entered and inevitably won — the 2002
World Junior Championships 200-metre,
the 2003 Pan American Junior
Championships 200-metre — the buzz
surrounding Bolt only grew louder.
Then, at age 21, after battling through
a series of injuries and setbacks, he set
the world record in the 100 metres with
a time of 9.72 seconds at the 2008
Reebok Grand Prix in New York.
Over the next seven years, he went on to
win 11 world championships and six
Olympic gold medals, setting the current
world records in both the 100-metre
(9.58 seconds) and 200-metre dashes
(19.19 seconds). He was also named the
Laureus World Sportsman of the Year
three times, an esteemed award that

LEFT: Usain strikes his trademark lightning bolt

pose after finishing first in the men’s 100m at the
2009 IAAF World Athletics Finals in Thessaloniki,
Greece; BELOW: Trailing the pack before setting
a new world record for the men’s 100m at the
2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China

MAXI M.COM.AU 2 5
SPOTLIGHT
July 2011: Usain Bolt takes on Christophe Lemaitre (centre), Maryo Forsythe (left) and Darvis Patton (right) in the 200m final at
Meeting Areva an annual track and field event previously known as Meeting Gaz de France, at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France
Tiger Woods, by comparison, has only
won twice. As the four-time Olympic
gold-medal sprinter Michael Johnson put
it, “It would be difficult for most athletes
to dominate for as long as Bolt has,
but it isn’t so much for him because
he’s so much better than everyone else.
He’s the best that’s ever been.”
This month, the 29-year-old
phenomenon will represent Jamaica in
his fourth Olympic Games, setting his
sights on a historic, unprecedented and,
until now, seemingly impossible three-
peat: winning gold in the 100-metre
sprint, the 200-metre sprint, and the 4 x
100-metre relay, precisely as he did in
2008 and 2012. He also hopes to run the
200m in under 19 seconds, a coup that
no competitor in history has been able to
touch. Should he succeed, the feat
wouldn’t just earn Bolt a spot in the
record books; it would guarantee him
sports immortality.
Sitting back in his chair in an opulent
Upper East Side hotel suite, Bolt seems
well aware of what’s at stake. “The Rio
Games are going to be my legacy,” he
says with some well-earned swagger,
dressed in an all-black ensemble that
doesn’t include shoes and seems
decidedly understated for an
international megastar who goes by the
moniker Lightning Bolt, until you notice
the watch wrapped around his left wrist.
Named the Big Bang Unico Usain Bolt,
it’s not just any watch; it’s an 18k-gold
head-turner, with 38 jewels, a Jamaican-
flag strap, and a second hand in the
shape of — what else? — a lightning bolt.
The unique timepiece is a product of
Bolt’s second collaboration with the
2 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
luxury Swiss brand Hublot. (He also
helped design the first, a watch with
a strap made from the same material
as his spikes.) “I told the people at
Hublot I wanted this one to pop,” he
says, gesturing at the US$42,200 in
hardware on his wrist. “Only 100 will
be made available to the public.”
Hublot is just one of a deep roster of
brands, including Puma, Gatorade,
Digicel, Regupol, Virgin Media, Nissan
and Celcom, that put a reported
US$21 million in Bolt’s pocket last year.
The figure starts to sound even more
impressive when you consider that this
is an athlete who, if you do the math,
spent about seven minutes actually
competing in 2015. Still, sprinting as a
full-time job takes its toll on a body,
and Bolt has been doing it for more
than half his life. These days, he admits
that even when he’s healthy he feels
his age. “Sometimes I wake up in the
morning and I’m like, ‘Ugh, I have to do
this again?’”
In preparation for the most important
moment in his career, Bolt has been
working with longtime coach and
mentor Glen Mills to optimise his
training and design a smarter, more
efficient routine. That means a
combination of science — using a high-
tech Tecar machine to flush out lactic
acid — and common sense. “I start
training when the sun is lower,” says
Bolt, describing his remedy to beat the
Jamaican heat. “It’s the little things you
figure out as you get older.”
Bolt’s most formidable obstacle in
Rio won’t be sore muscles but Brooklyn-
born sprinter Justin Gatlin. The 34-year-
“HE’S SO MUCH BETTER
THAN EVERYONE ELSE.
HE’S THE BEST
THAT’S EVER BEEN.”
old won 100-metre gold at the 2004
Olympics — when Bolt first competed but
wasn’t yet dominating — and lost to the
Jamaican at last year’s world
championships in Beijing by a mere one
hundredth of a second. The near miss
has Gatlin chirping as of late. “I’m the
closest threat he’s ever had... It’s my
duty to make it one of the most epic
races in Olympic history. I’m going to
win,” he said of his bid to take home the
gold. “We are bringing it back to the
United States. We’re going on tour
with it around my neck.” Asked about
his rival’s boasts, Bolt leans back and
grins. “I have nothing to say.”
Ahead of Rio, Bolt will travel to the
Cayman Islands, the Czech Republic,
Jamaica and London for a punishing
series of meets in the coming weeks.
Tonight, he’d love to just kick back and
rest, maybe root for his favourite NBA
player, Steph Curry, or catch up on
some episodes of Blacklist. But he can’t.
As one of the most marketable sports
figures in the world — he ranks 13th
among all athletes on Facebook — Bolt
is in constant demand. He glances down
at his watch — the one he helped design
— and realises he’s behind schedule.
He’s got to run. ■
 MAXIM MOUTH
ARGOT
The former Neighbours starlet, who is kind of a big deal in Hollywood these days and has had a huge
year with recent films Whisky Tango Foxtrot and The Legend of Tarzan, is here to tell us all about
playing a former psychiatrist turned crazed supervillain in her latest blockbuster Suicide Squad
You seem like a fairly cheerful person,
Margot, which is a little similar to your
Suicide Squad character Harley Quinn.
She is a really cheerful, bubbly person and
I remember when I first started researching
the role I had to look online because this
has such a big fan base and big following.
I wanted to know why people liked it so much.
And a lot of comments online were that she
just has this unflattenable sense of humour,
she’s so bubbly and loves the joker so much.
It was obvious people really liked that happy
side of her so I definitely don’t want to lose
that. Having said that, David [Ayer, director]
says it’s a much darker side of the story,
something unexpected. So on the one hand
you get to be happy during a time that you
want to be and on the other hand you have to
dig deep and go to dark places. It’s a balance.
The other thing is the other characters are
pretty serious, so in a lot of the scenes I play
out the bubbly side I suppose.
Is her love for The Joker what drives her?
Yeah, at the root of it all I take on a character
as she’s in love with The Joker. When you start
seeing it like that, it’s easy for me to justify my
actions and from there on there’s many other
things going on. Because she’s a psychiatrist
I think she plays on a lot of mental illnesses
and pretends she has things she doesn’t.
How do you prepare for that?
You can find so much on YouTube. There’s
a lot of great TED Talks on people with
schizophrenia, they’re well educated people
too. She wanted to be a doctor, a psychiatrist...
it’s really interesting to hear what voices
people listen to. I listen to voices in my head
over and over again, which drives you crazy.
Other than that, reading online, you can find
the MMPI test online... things like that.
Did you have much input into your look?
I didn’t have much to do with my look. The
hair and make-up team already had a billion
references they were working off. It all spun
off the day, the imagination, not just for my
character but for all the characters. It’s not a
bright shiny comic book style, the idea is more
symmetrical. Fortunately for us the comic
books have so many different looks for her
that it wasn’t one certain look, so we had a bit
of wiggle room there and I agreed with it all.
2 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
A lot of comic book movies are pretty
sexist towards women.
I wouldn’t even pigeon-hole it just to comic
movies, it’s a lot of movies that are sexist.
A lot of the time I think of the script and I love
the male character and I’m not that excited
about the female character. This film is
probably the strongest example of me picking
up the script and thinking, “I literally want the
female character... that is the best character”.
It’s so nice to have this opportunity. I wouldn’t
say it’s sexist because the female character is
actually better than the male ones in this.
Were you close with Jared Leto during the
shooting of the film?
We weren’t together all day every day, which
is a good thing. It’s weird, you convince
yourself for so long that this person is like the
greatest, everything he does is so wonderful.
So when he does things on set, I’m like,
“He’s so funny.” He’s great. It does rub off.
It’s your second film with Will Smith. How
is working with him?
Yeah, it’s good. We already had this existing
relationship. It made slipping into these roles
very easy because I had some chemistry. I
liked that it was already there because we
already did a film together, which really
worked out. And the dynamic of Harley and
Deadshot is that she looks up to him and she
“I FELL A FAIR FEW
TIMES. I FELL INTO
WATER, I FELL OUT
OF A HELICOPTER,
WHICH REALLY HURT,
AND WHATEVER
ELSE. I CAN BE
A LITTLE CLUMSY.”
can recognise he has really great leadership
skills and is really competent. She likes him
for that and he has a similar soft spot for her —
he wants to look out for her. I guess in a way
Will and I already found that, I think he’s a
really admirable person and has really taken a
liking to me as well, so it worked out perfectly.
Did you and actor Jai Courtney have any
“Aussie” moments on the set?
Oh yeah, we watched the State of Origin and
there were vegemite sandwiches and beers.
And because of the time difference we were
having beers at 6am. Jai was going for the
Blues and I’m with the Maroons. So great to
have another Australian around.
Did you have many accidents on set?
I fell a fair few times. I fell into water, I fell
out of a helicopter, which really hurt, and
whatever else. I can be a little clumsy.
Harley's weapon of choice is the bat.
Did you have any mishaps with it?
They’re really heavy, actually. I hit myself in
the head with the fake one during a scene.
I was like, “If that was the real one I would
have really hurt myself.” It’s a dangerous
weapon. I got the hang of it but occasionally
hit myself instead of the person I’m fighting.
This is the first time we’re seeing Harley in
live action. Did that give you the freedom
to do something a bit different than the
animated series and the comic books?
Yeah, totally. I don’t envy the position Jared is
in. It’s such a big task for him to do something
different. So I’m fortunate in that I can do my
own take and make it mine. It’s still up for
criticism, it’s always going to be but at least
there’s no comparison in this instance.
How did you handle the Brooklyn accent?
Yeah, it was actually tricky because I’m so
used to doing my Wolf of Wall Street Brooklyn
accent but every time I try to do a Brooklyn
accent it was slipping straight into that. So it
took a while to shift from that so I wouldn’t
mold the characters together.
Is Harley after redemption in the story?
It’s not really redemption for me, she’s just in
love with the Joker and being out of prison is
awesome so she’s like ’Woo! We’re on a field
MAXI M.COM.AU 2 9
MAXIM MOUTH
trip! I just want to blow things up’. She’s got
her own struggles but I wouldn’t say her
story is about redemption. It’s more about
her relationships and just finding herself,
finding her independence, because she’s so
dependent on The Joker. That’s her struggle.
Is doing a movie like this more fun than
Wolf of Wall Street or Focus?
It is and it isn’t. It’s so much fun getting into the
costumes all the time and you can act however
you want because you feel so separate from
your normal self and that makes creating a
character so much easier than having it done
for you. Having said that, when you come in
three hours before everyone else, after six
months of that, you’re sick of it. But it’s so cool
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What kind of make-up does it involve?
They paint the whole body, and then I have
21 tattoos, the wig and then once the story
line progresses, depending on what we were
shooting I have cuts and bruises and stuff.
Was playing Harley before and after she
changes a complete transformation?
I didn’t want it to be like a complete body
swap where Harley and then Harley Quinn
is totally different. There needs to be a
connection between the two — it was fun
doinhg both. And there are subtle differences.
She’s not always out going crazy but she’s still
crazy in love, it’s making her act crazy even
though she’s trying to be rational about it.
Their relationship is nuts, it’s really terrifying
but it’s very engaging to watch. I haven’t shied
away from that at all. And the accent is slightly
more pulled back.
Diversity: Margot as crazy baseball-
bat-wielding supervillain Harley
Quinn in Suicide Squad, and (right)
as Tarzan’s Jane alongside Alexander
Skarsgård in The Legend of Tarzan
3 0 MAXI M.COM.AU
And the costumes are also a bit skimpy.
Yeah, Toronto wasn’t as warm as I thought
it was going to be. We did a lot of exterior
night shoots with rain machines. It was really
cold. I feel like such a brat complaining.
What was your reaction to the rat?
Oh, I screamed, threw it away, I was not
expecting it at all. We were in the middle of
rehearsals and when I opened up the black rat
pops out of me and then, “Ahhh!” I screamed.
Then we ended up keeping him and fell in love
with him, he’s so sweet.
If the opportunity arises for you to play
Harley for the next 10 years, would you?
I remember the first TV show I signed on
for in America, a seven-season contract
was very normal and you’re like,
“That’s potentially the next eight or so
years of my life. I don’t even know where
I’ll be in eight years or what I’ll want to
be doing then.” It’s the gamble you take.
If anything is successful enough to be on
that long you must be enjoying it. It would
be nice. So I guess we’ll see what happens.
I wouldn’t freak out about it.
Director David Ayer is known for getting
to know his actors really well. Is this how
it worked out for you and him?
Day One was an interrogation. I resisted
at first, I didn’t like that to begin with, it’s
terrifying. You don’t want everyone to
know your deepest, darkest secrets, but it’s
probably the most effective form of directing
I’ve ever experienced. It works. Whether
it’s comfortable or not or everyone’s cup
of tea, it doesn’t matter. It’s really effective.
It’s weird though, but it bonded us really
quickly. His way of directing is nothing I’ve
ever seen before. It’s incredible. I don’t know
if it’s intelligent or situational, or if he’s just
making it up as he goes along and doesn’t
realise how extraordinary it is but it’s crazy.
He’s also known for real effects rather
than CGI. What was that like?
We had to wear ear plugs a lot because
whenever we were shooting, we’re shooting
real guns with real bullets. It’s really loud.
We did an action scene and my ears were still
ringing afterwards, but it’s so great because it
makes our job so much easier, the reactions
are so authentic. You’re actually reacting to
something. It might not be obvious to the
audience but it makes it easier for the actors.
We did this take where we were meant to have
a shock from something, to be frightened.
And they let off this bullet right next to you
which is so loud and literally I jumped like
a metre and everybody was laughing about it
later but I was like but that take I never could
have acted that, I never would have reacted,
or did such a big reaction but because it was
authentic, yeah.
What’s up next for you?
I am working on a couple things. Nothing is
really set in stone. It’s exciting to step into
the producer side of things at the moment.
It’s really busy, but we’re trying to get a
couple projects together, one to shoot after
this release, one we wouldn’t shoot until next
year. But all are female-driven stories and
female writers and female directors, so it’s
what the thesis is all about. And I definitely
want to but am not ready to yet. ■
ScOtTyCaM's
BeSt AuSsIe ShEdS

ShArEyOuRsHeD
fOr tHe cHaNcE tO wIn!
WiN apRiZepAcK
vAlUeD aTuP tO $4,000
PlUs 19rUnNeRsuPwIlLaLsOsHaReiNoVeR$3,500wOrThoFpRiZeS.
The top 20 entries will get their sheds (and heads) into Scotty’s new book – ‘Scotty Cam’s Best Aussie Sheds’!
Then, if the team of judges (including Scotty himself) reckon you’ve got the best Aussie shed, you’ll win the major
prize pack including this shed load of great gear:

$500
Bisley Workwear Voucher
$PrIcElEsS
(you could spend it at Signed copies of Scotty’s books:
Scotty’s online store and ‘Scott Cam’s Home Maintenance for
get ‘Mates Rates’) Knuckleheads’ and ‘Out the Back.’

$2,000
worth of Makita $1,000 $430 worth of VB goodies
including a 70L VB
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There will be 19 runner-up prize packs including a Makita tool belt, a Bisley Workshirt, a VB merch pack
(t-shirt, cap, two stubby holders) and Scotty’s two books.
So get your shed ship-shape, take some snaps and shoot ‘em through to me by completing an entry form
and uploading them in a few easy steps. You’ll need to send in a minimum of five and a maximum of 10
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EnTeRNoW! cAmPaIgN.sCoTtYcAm.cOm.aU
*Prize pack photos are for illustration purposes only For terms and conditions go to http://campaign.scottycam.com.au
MACHINES

Aston Martin Vulcan

BY B I L L VA R E T I M I D I S

Relax Trekkies, this one borrows its name from the Arvo
Vulcan jet bomber from the 1950s. And jet it does — being
the most hardcore Aston Martin ever produced by the British
marquee. Aston bosses wanted a limited production, track-
only supercar built for extreme performance, so first order
of business was to find an engine fit for the task. Cue Aston
Martin Racing, who were nice enough to supply a naturally
aspirated V12 which produces upwards of 800bhp. Not the
same punch as the Ferrari FXX K and McLaren P1 GTR, but
in the same supercar league.
It’s 100% carbon fibre body is based on the One-77 model,
and it is this, together with a full FIA roll cage that give it a
power-to-weight ratio advantage over the Le Mans GTE
cars. Scary. Inside, you’ll find a full TFT screen in front of
a racing steering wheel, associated switchgear — and bugger
all else. Twenty-four Vulcans will be built in tribute to Aston’s
association with 24-hour endurance racing. All 24 approved
buyers will first get the opportunity to run track times in a
V12 Vantage S, Vantage GT4, and a One-77 to gain experience
before the big dance. But we’d prefer to skip the foreplay.

ENGINE: TRANSMISSION: POWER: TOP SPEED: 0-100KM/H: PRICE:

7.0 litre naturally aspirated V12 XTrac 6 speed sequential 600KW 360 KM/H 2.9 SECONDS $2.97 MILLION

3 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
HOW TO…

WIN A
V8 SUPERCARS RACE Freightliner Racing’s TIM SLADE is the newest V8 Supercars race victor to
emerge in 2016 with the South Australian becoming the year’s second double
race winner at Winton this season. Being no stranger to the driving game,
he takes us through exactly what needs to be done to win a V8 Supercars race

PASS CARS BEFORE THE START Why fight your way to the
front when you can start there, right? It’s simple, if you
qualify well, you start well. Scoring the fastest time will give
you pole position, as I achieved at the Winton round, and
as much as I’d love to do that at every race the fact is the
competition is ridiculously close. When the field of 26 drivers
go and qualify for a race all that separates first and last
place is less than a second. I know you’re thinking that’s
close and if you look at it as a length it equates to less than
10 metres. The next key is getting a good start in the race.
Your reaction time to the red lights going out needs to be as
quick as lightning yet you don’t want to bog down the engine
with the wrong rev amount or spin the tyres by giving it a bit
much. It needs to be perfect. The cars roar off the start line,
getting to 100km/ph in 3.4 seconds, and drivers are instantly
trying to defend and gain position. The first lap is always
a nail-biter for viewers because if something goes wrong
with that many V8’s racing that close, you can guarantee
it’s going to end pretty spectacularly.
BRAINS BEHIND THE BEAST No matter what sport you play
everyone has a game plan. Strategy is one of the key elements
in a race — it can boost a driver from 20th to a podium finish
just by an engineer making the right call. My engineers,
Julian Stannard and Tom Wettenhall, are the brains trust
working behind the scenes. I work with these guys more
closely than anyone else on the team. Julian communicates
with me during a race and has to make the pit stop calls that
could make or break my race. The software systems we have
means Julian can look at the race like a game of chess; he is
constantly looking for the next move I can make, and five
moves beyond that. There is no guessing, Julian calculates

3 6 MAXI M.COM.AU P H OTO G R A P H Y BY DA N I E L K A L I S Z WOR DS TI M SLADE & E BONY DOH E RTY

 4

“A RACE WIN IS THE SWEETEST

MOMENT OF GLORY
YOU CAN NEVER BEAT.”
(1) Making the most of the kerbs at the Clipsal
500; (2) Inside Tim’s Freightliner Racing
Commodore; (3) Racing to a podium finish
in Darwin; (4) Cool and confident at Winton

MAXI M.COM.AU 3 7
 Driving the streets of
Melbourne as part of
the Formula 1 Grand Prix
everything. Pit stops are compulsory, tyre compounds vary
from race to race, and fuel fill amounts need to be met. They
also factor in the safety car, which can come out at any
time if there is a crash or debris on the circuit. A safety
car bunches the field up so any margins the race leader
may have had is gone.
PIT STOP PRESSURE Regulations allow eight people to be
involved in pit lane for the stops. You’ve got four people
changing the wheels, a car controller, an air jack/spike
person, a refueller, a dead man (they open the valve to allow
the fuel to flow) and someone on the sideline with a fire
extinguisher. The average stop is four seconds for tyres only.
That is one guy on each wheel, with a wheel gun in one hand,
taking off a 20kg wheel with the other hand, throwing it
between his legs and picking up a new tyre and putting the
new one on. Compare this to Formula 1 where it takes three
seconds for three guys to change a tyre! Lose one second in
a pit stop and you could lose three or four positions on
the track. The longest pit stop you would do is about 20-30
seconds, which would see four new tyres and 110 litres of
fuel put in the car. During this, mechanics may need to fix
damage, do damper/ride height adjustments, remove a
windscreen tear off, and more. The engineers look at what is
crucial and if they have time to do it crews are under
maximum pressure to get everything done in the time frame.
HAVE A RIDE OR DIE TEAM I genuinely know that the team
supports me 110%. There are 45 people who work full-time
for Brad Jones Racing and it’s not just backing from the small
group of those people that do the day-to-day work on my
Freightliner Racing car — it’s everyone from the bottom to
the top. I get all the help I need to get the most out of myself
which is a really awesome feeling and boosts my confidence.
The team have an ultra-competitive nature and want to win
more than anything — this support is at 110% for each other
as well. To work in this kind of environment is beyond
3 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
anything else. People don’t realise the team at the workshop
don’t stop for a rest between races, they often work 12 days
straight before, after and including race weekends. Once the
trucks arrive back to base the workshop guys go over my car
from top to bottom, putting on new parts, servicing parts
and getting it in mint condition when we roll out for the next
event. Preparation is key and the simple fact is that you can’t
get the job done without the right equipment.
GO YOUR HARDEST V8 Supercars drivers get four test days
each year, so the time to practice what we do is extremely
limited. You can’t simulate the g-forces, 65-degree cabin
temperatures, the required concentration levels or any of
the real race conditions in a training environment.
You need to be strong to constantly work the pedals,
gears and steering of this 650+ horsepower beast and be able
to endure the hot and tough conditions that races throw
at you. Training for me each week involves cycling 300kms,
circuit training at the gym, Pilates classes with my girlfriend
(and instructor) Dani, and runs on my local Gold Coast beach
with my dog Max. I’m a believer in eating good to feel good.
I have no strict diet but I avoid processed and heavy foods.
Once the helmet goes on, its game time. All the preparation
and hard work behind the scenes, that the team has done,
now rest in my hands. As a driver you have to bring your
A-game every time you head onto the track because everyone
is relying on you to get the job done — fans, sponsors, and
of course, the team. If something goes wrong it could be
over in a matter of seconds, but get it right and you achieve
the ultimate prize — the victory. A race win is the sweetest
moment of glory you can never beat. ■
Tim Slade currently competes for Freightliner Racing
in the #14 Holden VF Commodore in the 2016
Virgin Australia Supercars Championship
BAR

HENNESSY’S
NEW $40,000
SUPERCOGNAC
CELEBRATES
250 YEARS OF
DISTILLING
DECADENCE
BY J A R E D PA U L S T E R N

For the past 25 years, Yann Fillioux, Hennessy’s

master blender, has been the key figure behind
the iconic brand’s celebrated cognac. Now,
at age 69, he is ready to anoint a successor
after 50 years with the brand, but not before
presenting his final, and greatest, creation for
the famed maison. Priced at $40,000 a bottle
and available in selected store now, Hennessy 8
is a blend of eight utterly exceptional varieties
of eau-de-vie, the fermented, double-distilled
spirit at the heart of cognac, representing
eight generations of incomparable heritage
— with just 250 bottles being produced for
the entire world.
Seven selections were chosen by Fillioux
— who’s also the seventh person ever to
serve as Hennessy master blender — from
the greatest distillations of the past seven
generations. The eighth was picked by Renaud
Fillioux de Gironde, Fillioux’s nephew, who
will begin his transition to master blender
later this year. Together, they spent the past
five years crafting the precious spirit, which
represents 250 years of Hennessy heritage
and the Fillioux family’s 200-year association
with the prestigious house.
Of course, the world’s most exclusive
cognac needs a suitable vessel to hold it,
and artist Arik Levy was chosen to design a
special decanter, which consists of eight rings,
representing each of the eight generations of
eau-de-vie in the blend. An elaborate chest
constructed of 25 layers of wood (one for
each decade of Hennessy’s history) holds
it, and together the spirit, decanter, and box The Hennessy 8 box is made
are meant to evoke all the things that make from the same oak staves used
Hennessy, and especially this cognac, a legend. in the brand’s cognac barrels

SECOND SHOT Blended by master 2014, and its coveted handsomely. The available at the Peninsulaa
AT GRE ATNESS craftsmen from the big brother, Rare Four Seasons Los Beverly Hills and Ariaa’s
legendary Ugni Blanc Cask, went for Angeles at Beverly High Limit Lounge in
RÉMY grapes of Grand US$22,000 in 2013. Hills serves Rare Las Vegas, which offe ers
MARTIN Champagne, in
France’s Cognac
Both royal strains are
now completely sold
Cask at a decidedly
stiff US$1,300 per
a triple shot of Rare Cask
C k,
Black Pearl, and Classsic
region, Rémy Martin out, but you can still ounce, while Toronto’s Louis XIII for US$3,500.
Louis XIII’s Black get a taste of the Shoushin pours it Just the kind of
Pearl Anniversary “king of cognacs” at for an even loftier extravagant tipple thaat’s
Edition sold for a handful of white- US$1,000 per e
called for after a huge
US$16,000 a bottle glove cocktail dens, half-ounce. The luxe night at the blackjack
when it debuted in if you’re willing to pay Louies are also table. — Chris Wilson

4 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
C O V E R GGI RI RLL

Renee
4 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
The Return Of
ACTRESS, ANIMAL ADVOCATE, INSTAGRAM SENSATION AND ONE
OF THE SEXIEST MAXIM MODELS TO EVER ADORN THESE PAGES,
RENEE SOMERFIELD, IS BACK. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!
P H OTO G R A P H E D BY B O N N I E C E E I N T E R V I E W BY S A N T I P I N TA D O

MAXI M.COM.AU 4 5
COVER GIRL
Renee, what have you
en up to since we last saw
u in MAXIM in July 2015?
have still been modelling
ll time, travelling whenever
get the chance and building
y new swimwear company,
merfield Swim. It has been an
ceptionally fun, challenging
d rewarding year.
s, you’re wearing your
cently launched swimwear
this shoot. Why did you
ecide to release it?
I’ve had a long modelling career built largely around swimwear
and I literally own more bikinis than I do clothes. Designing
my own swimwear line has always been a dream of mine since
as long as I can remember and I feel as though it has come
naturally to me. Not only do I own a ridiculous amount of bikinis
but I’ve tried on and modelled thousands, so I really understand
what makes up a great cut and design for comfort and style.
I’m literally obsessed with every piece in my collection because
I only create bikinis I totally love and would wear myself.
What did you love most about this shoot?
I loved that it was completely spontaneous. We were in the
Maldives shooting my first Somerfield Swim campaign and
one morning it was overcast and raining so we took a little
adventure to the other side of the island and just decided to
play around and take some cool shots. It was completely
random and the concept was raw — I knew from that instant the
images had to be used for something special and what better
way than for MAXIM’s fifth birthday issue.
We couldn’t agree more. What’s been your best birthday?
I always spend my birthday in Bali. My best birthday so far
was last year when I spent the day at Padang Padang Beach
then onto Potato Head Beach Club in the evening. It was really
intimate, with only my closest friends, just the way I like it. Lots
of fun and memories made with people I will always cherish.
What’s the craziest birthday you’ve ever had?
When I was 17 with a fake I.D. Everything is more fun when
you're underage, right?
Describe your ideal birthday.
It’s only fitting I spend my birthday by the water, in a bikini,
with my favourite people, of course. It starts to get a little cold
by May in Sydney so I like to go away somewhere. Although,
everyone who knows me will know that I really don’t like to
make a huge fuss over my birthday.
Then how will you celebrate your birthday next May?
Well, as Bali is my birthday ritual I’d say Bali, but I can
never plan that far ahead. I’m more of a last-minute kind of girl.
What is a typical day in your life like?
Most days start with an early wake up, drive to a Sydney job
or to the airport for an interstate shoot. If I’m lucky and only
booked for one job that day I can fly home. Although, no two
days are ever really the same, which I love.
What do you love and hate about your job?
I really can’t complain about my job, but there are a few small
things I don’t love. Waking up super early on cold mornings
in winter has to be right up there. Most people don’t realise
that a lot of summer fashion is shot in winter and vice versa.
Also, I often get homesick when I have to go away. There
are so many things I love about my job but I’d have to say
meeting so many different people each day is a true blessing.
4 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
I have met so many creative, successful, inspiring people
throughout my career. Oh, and I love having the opportunity
to travel to tropical locations, of course!
If you weren’t modelling and travelling the world what
would you be doing?
I’ve always been a creative type and have always wanted
to be my own boss. I have no idea what I’d be doing right
now if I wasn’t modelling and designing swimwear but
I assume it would be working for myself in a creative aspect
one way or another.
Tell us about your involvement with PETA.
It’s been a true honour working with PETA. I’m a devoted and
passionate animal advocate and having the opportunity to raise
awareness about how damaging consuming animal products
is to animals and the environment is something I take very
seriously and it’s extremely close to my heart. I appreciate
anybody who stands up and has a voice for the voiceless.
You’ve done some acting along the way, too. What have
you most enjoyed about it?
Acting is so fun. I feel like I can model with my eyes closed these
days, so acting is a bit more of a challenge. I’m not the greatest at
remembering lines but I love to improvise. Any acting gig where
I can improvise on the spot is my favourite kind and I’m open to
trying new things and having new experiences whenever I can.
When do you feel sexy?
I feel sexiest when I’m in my natural habitat — at the beach,
with no make-up, sand between my toes and sun and salt
on my skin.
A few years ago you went on a date with a MAXIM reader
as part of a promotion we ran. How’d it go?
I can be really shy before I get to know somebody, so the
date started off awkward to say the least, but he turned out
to be a really sweet guy and we got along and had a lot of fun.
What do you look for in a guy?
It has to be somebody who is authentic and kind, with a great
sense of humour.
What’s your ideal date?
Something low-key, like dinner and a walk along the beach.
What would it take for you to say ‘yes’ to dating one
of your 1.4 million (and rising) Instagram followers?
They would definitely have to be one in a million.
If you had to take MAXIM on a date what would we do?
The MAXIM guys are a bunch of smelly, hairy men who I’d take
for a back, sack and crack wax.
Thank you! You’ve been a MAXIM girl since we launched
five years ago. What are your fondest memories?
I love being part of the
MAXIM family, the team
“I FEEL SEXIEST are amazing to work with.
My fondest memory will
WHEN I’M IN MY probably be this cover as it
will take the record place
NATURAL HABITAT for my fourth cover which
is exciting! And how could
— AT THE BEACH, I forget the red jumpsuit days
— camel, cough, toe alert!
WITH NO MAKE-UP, Finally, where would you
like to be in five years?
SAND BETWEEN MY I’d like to be running a
highly successful company,
TOES AND SUN AND travelling often and most of
all being happy. Love and
SALT ON MY SKIN.” happiness trumps all things.
MAXI M.COM.AU 4 7
COVER GIRL

4 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
MAXI M.COM.AU 4 9
COVER GIRL

5 0 MAXI M.COM.AU
MAXI M.COM.AU 5 1
COVER GIRL

5 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
 STATUS
UPDATE
HOMETOWN:
Sydney, NSW
BORN:
May 16
HOBBIES:
“Eating, beaching
and travelling.”
HIDDEN TALENT:
“Being able to change
clothing really quickly
in any circumstance.”
GIRL CRUSH:
“Adriana Lima.”
INSTAGRAM:
@ReneeSomerfield
TWITTER:
@ReneeSomerfield

MAXI M.COM.AU 5 3
NAKED REVOLT PETA Australia’s Associate Director, Ashley Fruno, has quite a history
of getting naked in public… for her employer, of course
BY AS H L EY F R U N O

“I’ve walked around naked in Hong Kong,” says the People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals worker. “When I visit
Sydney, I go topless. Recently, in Melbourne’s CBD, I wore
nothing but panties and bodypaint. And in Bangalore,
I wore only lettuce leaves. I don’t do this for fun — I’m
trying to make a point.” Here’s a snippet of her vocation…
Getting naked is all in a day’s work for me at People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Australia. Dedicated
to helping all animals, we target factory farms, laboratories,
the clothing trade and the entertainment industry. We also
work on issues involving wildlife, “pests” and companion
animals. So why do we get naked? I don’t have to tell you that
sex sells, right? Advertising plays a huge role in getting
the animal rights message out to audiences around the
world. Unlike our opposition, which consists mostly of
fat-cat industries and corporations, we don’t have an
advertising budget and must rely on getting free “advertising”
through media coverage. Reporters love to cover nude
protests, naked celebrity ads and controversial actions — so
that’s exactly what we give them.
I’D RATHER GO NAKED
PETA’s goal is to get people to pay attention. And if shedding
my clothes helps shed light on the pain animals endure,
I’m willing to strip in any place, at any time and in any type
of weather — even if it means braving the cold during anti-fur
protests in Canada and Korea. And I’m not alone in this: actress
Olivia Munn and reality TV star Gabi Grecko have bared it all in
racy anti-fur ads. Even Sophie Monk posed naked surrounded
by hot chilli peppers to entice people to go vegetarian, and
adult film star Jenna Jameson cracked the whip on the miserable
leather industry by posing in a pleather dominatrix outfit.
LUSCIOUS LETTUCE LADIES
When I’m not giving fur the cold shoulder in Tokyo, I can often
be found wilting in the heat while wearing a bikini made of
lettuce leaves in cities like Vancouver and Taipei. I’m proud
to be one of PETA’s iconic “Lettuce Ladies”. Who wouldn’t
be when you’re following in the footsteps of stars like Pamela
Anderson? Scores of hot celebrities have flaunted their fine
forms for us. Former MAXIM cover girl and swimwear goddess
Sheridyn Fisher posed in a lettuce-leaf bikini to encourage others

5 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
Former US porn star Jenna Jameson (far left)
and Aussies babes Imogen Bailey (left) and
Sophie Monk (above) doing their bit for PETA

MAXI M.COM.AU 5 5
to “turn over a new leaf” by trying a vegetarian diet. Covered
top-to-toe in only bodypaint, MAXIM model (on the cover this
very issue) Renee Somerfield urged Aussies to “save the planet”
and “try vegan”. And British bombshell Tamara Ecclestone
cuddled up to baby ducklings to highlight the horrors of foie
gras. Why are these famous chicks sticking up for chicks
and other animals killed for food? Chickens are crammed into
cages so tightly that they often go insane and peck each
other to death. And pigs, who are smarter than your dog,
have their testicles ripped off — without painkillers.
GET A HEART-ON
Eating meat is bad not only for animals but also for
your love life. That’s right, what goes on in the kitchen
has a lot to do with what goes on, or doesn’t, in the
bedroom. Why can’t carnivores keep up with the
“Johnsons”? The fat and the cholesterol found in
meat, eggs and dairy foods clog up arteries, slowing
the flow of blood to all your vital organs, not just the
heart. So brace yourself, boys — if you keep pounding those
greasy burgers, the only thing that will be getting hard is your
arteries. On the other hand, vegetarians are much healthier
and have been known to perform spectacular sensual feats
in the bedroom. They are 50 per cent less likely to develop
Famous ladies who have stripped for PETA campaigns include MAXIM cover girl Renee Somerfield (above left), actress Olivia Munn (above
right), and (below, from left to right) former porn star Sasha Grey, reality TV star Gabi Grecko and former MAXIM cover girl Sheridyn Fisher
5 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
heart disease, 40 per cent less likely to get cancer and, on
average, five to 10kg lighter than meat-eaters. Vegetarians also
save many animals every year and have sex about 100 times
a month. I’m kidding about the sex part — it could be more!
PUSSY AND PUP BIRTH CONTROL
Speaking of sex, shocking news — millions who desperately
need access to birth control can’t even get the wrapper off
a condom. Who are these individuals? Dogs and cats, of course!
More than 200,000 cats and dogs are currently euthanised in
Australia each year, simply because there aren’t enough good
homes for them. Solving the companion-animal overpopulation
problem is up to us, and we can help control it with the help
of a simple operation: spaying and neutering. And no, dogs
and cats that have been neutered won’t become less manly or
fall into depression over their missing parts. In fact, dogs who
have not been spayed or neutered are much more likely to bite
and display dominance and territorial or aggressive behaviour
than ones who have been sterilised. Animals that have been
spayed or neutered live longer, healthier lives and have a
reduced risk of developing reproductive cancer. Don’t believe
us? Just ask actress, model and former porn star Sasha Grey,
who starred in a sultry ad for PETA to remind us all that too
much sex can be a bad thing.
 “I’ve walked around naked in Hong Kong,” says PETA worker,
P H OTO G R A P H ( TO P FA R R I G H T ) BY S C O P E P H OTO S . C O M . AU
Ashley Fruno (the redhead in these images). “When I visit Sydney,
I go topless. Recently, in Melbourne I wore nothing but panties
and bodypaint. And in Bangalore, I wore only lettuce leaves."
ANIMAL ATTRACTION
While we’re on the subject of animals, I’d like to get back to
getting naked. Covered by little more than a heart-shaped sign
which read, “HAVE A HEART, BOYCOTT THE ZOO”, I was one
of four women who flashed flesh outside a zoo in Manila to
bring attention to animals in captivity. But this isn’t the only
place we’ve taken it all off for animals abused for the sake of
entertainment. Wearing little more than bodypaint, I protested
outside the Melbourne Zoo to demonstrate that you can let
animals show their true colours by never attending zoos or
supporting animal entertainment acts.
So what’s wrong with zoos? Even the largest zoos cannot
provide the animals they imprison with the space, exercise,
privacy, mental stimulation and other vital things they need.
Take the Melbourne Zoo, for example — at first glance,
it might look like the animals live in a natural setting, but
a closer look at the enclosures reveals environments that can
never compare to the lush jungles, forests, grasslands, rivers
and oceans these animals call home. Just last year, a female
gorilla named Julia died after she had been left in an enclosure
with a male silverback gorilla who attacked her for 24 hours.
She had nowhere to run.
In 2005, nearly 100 animals died over an eight-month
period from causes including drowning, traumatic injuries and
infectious diseases. The entire Melbourne Zoo measures only
.22 square kilometres however wild elephant herds roam up
to 50km a day — an activity that is essential to their well-being.
The physical and mental frustrations caused by captivity often
lead to abnormal, neurotic and even self-destructive behaviour
in animals. Considering that zoos’ animal inmates have
no control over anything in their lives, it’s no wonder that
they’re going crazy. Wouldn’t you? Imagine how you’d feel
if you had no choice over what you ate, who your friends were
or who you had sex with. You’d be denied all your natural
desires — including reading this article!
In another tragedy, in 2013, a baby elephant named Sanook
suffocated after becoming entangled in a tyre toy. And just last
month, a western lowland silverback gorilla named Harambe
was shot and killed at Cincinnati Zoo after dragging and playing
with a toddler who had fallen into the enclosure.
THE NAKED TRUTH
PETA’s goal is to open peoples’ eyes to what’s happening
to animals. And if that means we have to do “naked” ads and
hold eye-popping protests, then bring it on! You, however,
do not need to get naked to help animals (unless you want to).
Just visit PETA.org.au, request a FREE vegetarian/vegan starter
kit and try going vegan for 30 days. Come on, you’ve gone
30 days without other things you thought you couldn’t live
without — do it for the animals. Do it for your health. Or just
do it for the ladies. As a woman, I can assure you that the old
saying is true: “A hard man is good to find.” Whatever you
decide to do, get active for animals today! And always choose
compassion. As for me, it’s time to get naked. ■
FOR MORE INFO GO TO WWW.PETA.ORG.AU
MAXI M.COM.AU 5 7
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MASTER
of the
UNIVERSE
Driven by an insatiable appetite for adventure,
Sir Richard Branson has made billions defying
the odds. Now the visionary entrepreneur is
setting out to conquer the greatest frontier of all

ichard Branson has

lived his life according
to a simple motto:
Screw it, let’s do it (his
words). Since leaving
school at the age of 16
to start his first
business, the founder
of the Virgin Group has
driven a tank down
Fifth Avenue, crossed
the English Channel in
an amphibious car,
taken a 407-foot jump
off the Palms Casino
Resort in Las Vegas, and travelled from Morocco to Hawaii in
a hot-air balloon. He’s started more than 100 different
companies, including a major record label and two high-profile
airlines, and made a career of challenging corporate giants.
He’s a master showman in the P.T. Barnum vein, adept at
catching the public’s eye with clever publicity stunts (thus the
tank and the leap off the casino roof), and he’s been brilliant at
understanding what consumers want and delivering it to them.
He’s also been brilliant at fashioning a winning public image —
fearless, irreverent, more interested in fun than profit — which
over the years has become one of Virgin’s major assets and
turned him into one of the greatest business impresarios in
history. Yet despite all the success, which has driven his personal
net worth north of US$5 billion, he’s remained permanently
restless. An archetypal entrepreneur, Branson has never
stopped looking for the next big idea. He believes he’s found it
in Virgin Galactic, a company that wants to put ordinary people
into space. And he’s done it all, as he says, while working from a
hammock on the private island in the Caribbean where he lives.
Branson’s entrepreneurial zeal was there from the start.
When he was growing up in London, his mother was a small-
businesswoman in her own right, doing things like making
waste-bin covers that she sold to Harrods. “I was always
fascinated by my mother’s moneymaking projects,” Branson
says today. “If an item didn’t sell, she tried something else. She
always taught me never to look back in regret, but to move on to
the next thing.” And she pushed Branson to rely on his own
devices to get ahead. When he was just a little boy, for instance,
she once stopped the car when they were returning to the family
house and told him to get out and find his way home. That kind

BY JAM E S S U R OWI E C KI MAXI M.COM.AU 5 9

ICON

“WHETHER THE CHALLENGES ARE PHYSICAL

OR FINANCIAL, FUN HAS FOR ME ALWAYS BEEN
INEXTRICABLY LINKED WITH TAKING RISKS, AND
SOMETIMES PERHAPS SOME PRETTY INSANE ONES.”

6 0 MAXI M.COM.AU
of pressure might have crushed some kids. Branson seems to
have flourished — even as a child, he tried various business
schemes, like growing Christmas trees and selling birds.
Those schemes, as Branson’s mother once put it, almost all
ended up “in some form of disaster, with us picking up the
pieces.” But in what would become the defining pattern of his
business life, failure didn’t diminish his appetite for new
ventures. While he was still in high school, he started a magazine
called Student with a friend; at 16, he actually dropped out
of school to try to turn it into a full-time business, running
the magazine at first out of a crypt in a vicar’s basement, of
all places. Student was an unusual combination of literature,
music, and politics, and Branson managed to somehow publish
writers like Jean-Paul Sartre while finagling interviews with
people like John Lennon and Vanessa Redgrave.
That was heady company for a teenager, but Student was
a struggle to keep afloat, and Branson soon branched out into
the record-selling business. He started by offering cut-price
records via mail order, something apparently few had done
before. Then he and his partner opened a store of their own,
which they called Virgin Records, designing it to be as much
a community centre as a retail shop. They put in a coffee bar and
beanbags, and actively encouraged people to come and hang
out — in much the way that stores like Barnes & Noble would
decades later. “There was no master plan,” Branson says.
“We just enjoyed what we did and made sure we had enough
to pay the bills each month.”
When Branson left school, his headmaster had said,
“I predict you will either end up in prison or a millionaire.”
Prescient words: Before he became a millionaire, Branson
nearly did end up in prison. At the time, record sales in Britain
were taxed at a high rate, and Branson hit on what he thought
was a clever way to evade those taxes. Instead, he was caught
and tossed in jail, and was only able to avert getting sent away
when his parents put up their house as collateral and he agreed
to repay 60,000 pounds.
That experience, as Branson describes it, made him more
conscious of minding the law. But it didn’t make him any more
cautious. He soon expanded the record store into a record label
under the same name. He bought a big house in the countryside,
which he dubbed the Manor, where he built a recording studio.
And in 1973, Virgin Records took off, thanks largely to Mike
Oldfield’s eerie instrumental album Tubular Bells (which is
probably best known as the soundtrack to horror-thriller flick
The Exorcist). Tubular Bells became an immense hit, ultimately
selling 17 million copies and giving Virgin financial security.
In the years that followed, Virgin became the biggest
independent label in the U.K. It signed the Sex Pistols after they
ABOVE (left to right): In 1973 Branson starts his record-selling business by offering cut-price records via mail order — to be enjoyed by music lovers lazing on
beanbags; Virgin Mobile’s 17-year history began with the little flip phone; Launching the world’s first in-flight entertainment system on Virgin Atlantic in 1983
O P E N I N G S P R E A D : O W E N B U G G Y P H O TO G R A P H Y. O P P O S I T E PA G E : A R T S T R E I B E R / A U G U S T V
were dropped by A&M, and developed a deep roster of punk and
post-punk bands. It started an influential reggae imprint and
had a stable of mainstream stars, including Culture Club,
Genesis, and Simple Minds.
Branson’s flair for promotional stunts, which would become
a signature, was on display right from the beginning. The most
famous of these came during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977.
The Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen” had been banned by the
BBC, so Branson put the band on a boat and sailed it down
the Thames, creating the spectacle of the Pistols blasting
“Anarchy in the U.K.” while outside of Parliament. The show was
eventually shut down by the police. Virgin also became
legendary for throwing massive parties at the Manor.
But the success of Virgin Records wasn’t enough for Branson.
So he set about starting a host of new ventures. Some of them,
like a film and entertainment company, were theoretically
connected to Virgin’s original business; others seemed to have
nothing at all to do with it. Then in 1983, Branson made the
move that would prove to be the crucial moment in his career
— he decided to start Virgin Atlantic, a transatlantic airline.
This was, most people thought at the time, a “lunatic
venture.” As Branson himself has said, his knowledge of the
airline business “hovered right around the zero mark.” The
industry was then, as it is now, dominated by big, incumbent
international players who controlled landing slots at the major
airports and had considerable political clout. The airline
business itself is a notoriously difficult one, since airlines are
subject to the price of fuel, the whims of travellers, bad weather,
and so on. And historically, it’s been hard for airlines to
differentiate themselves from competitors, leaving them
vulnerable to price wars. The history of the business, not
surprisingly, was littered with airlines that had gone bankrupt
and upstarts that had barely managed to get off the ground.
And as Branson tells it, Virgin Atlantic very nearly didn’t,
thanks to some high drama when it launched with a single
plane. “Despite careful planning, we were almost sunk after
our first trip when a bird flew into the engine and we had to use
our reserves to buy a new plane,” he recalls. “I had the bank
manager on my doorstep on the Friday evening, saying he
would foreclose on the whole Virgin Group that Monday.
I pushed him out of my house and told him he wasn’t welcome.
Then in half-anger, half-fear, I spent the weekend asking people
to chip in. The next week I changed banks.”
So why did Branson do it? Some of it, surely, was just his
appetite for long odds — he never seems happier than when
trying something that everyone else believes will fail. (“It was a
big leap,” he admits.) But there was also something that he saw,
an opportunity others had missed: The experience of flying
MAXI M.COM.AU 6 1
ICON
In August 2000 Branson launched his Virgin Blue airline in Australia, but by May 2011 he rebranded and renamed it Virgin Australia
commercial airlines was, for the most part, fairly unpleasant.
Virgin didn’t want to compete on price alone, since that was
a recipe for a race to the bottom. Branson’s thought was that if
you could provide better, and more distinctive, service and still
keep prices reasonable, there was a chance to steal market share
from the big players. As Branson says, “We took the same
customer-focused approach we had with our music businesses
and added all kinds of little service extras.” And so Virgin
offered its first-class passengers complimentary limo service.
It built the first real high-end airline lounges and offered the first
video players. It even became the first airline to scrap those
weird gray rubber headphone tubes and offer customers cheap
portable headphones instead.
On top of this, the airline industry was tailor-made for
Virgin’s David-vs-Goliath approach. It was an industry
dominated by big, established players, and in Britain, by one
huge player: British Airways. Branson built Virgin on irreverence
and tweaking the powers that be, and stuffy, old-fashioned
British Airways was an easy target for tweaking. It was really
with Virgin Atlantic that Branson’s true genius for branding
emerged — he understood that an anti-corporate image could,
paradoxically, make you a lot of money. Virgin’s irreverence
wasn’t just a strategy; it was also an expression of Branson’s
own personality, and it paid dividends. Virgin earned reams of
free publicity thanks to its campy stunts and clever advertising.
On the eve of Virgin’s first flight from Heathrow, for instance,
Branson posed for photographs dressed as a pirate (complete
with stuffed parrot) in front of the huge model of BA’s Concorde
that stood at the entrance to the airport, while workmen draped
a Virgin logo over the BA insignia on the plane’s tail fin.
Virgin also became a master of cheeky ads, often designed to
needle British Airways, conveying the message that Virgin was
more fun and less uptight than its competitors. When the U.S.
Justice Department extradited Panama strongman Manuel
Noriega for trial on drug charges, Virgin ran an ad with a big
picture of Noriega and the caption, “Only one person has flown
to Miami cheaper than on Virgin Atlantic!”
On the face of it, Virgin’s move into the airline business made
6 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
little sense. But there was, if you looked closely enough, a logic
to what Branson was trying to do. Virgin’s companies tended to
deal directly with consumers, and its successful ventures were
typically in businesses where the customer experience was
lacking: too complicated, too expensive for the value delivered,
and too unstylish. Virgin, it turned out, had what management
theorists called a “core competency,” and that was improving
the customer experience. And when Virgin has succeeded,
that’s precisely what it’s done.
Still, while clever promotions and friendly service can get
you a lot, they can’t make up for everything. And while Virgin
Atlantic was a success in its early days, by the early ’90s it
was struggling to stay afloat. Fuel prices were rising, travel was
down across the industry, and the company found itself at
serious risk of going broke. Branson would later say that this
was the one time in his career when he felt “totally lost.”
To save the airline, he gave up the record company, selling
Virgin Records to Thorn-EMI.
You might have thought that this near brush with death
would have tempered Branson’s appetite for risk. Instead,
it just emboldened him, and over the next decade Virgin started
dozens of new companies. There were some real hits, like
Virgin Mobile (which eventually became Virgin Media) and
Virgin Trains. And while there were also plenty of misses
(Virgin Brides, Virgin Vodka, Virgin Cosmetics, and Virgin
Cars, an online auto retailer), Branson knew going in that
some of his gambles wouldn’t pay off. His willingness to fail,
in that sense, was a crucial part of his success.
Virgin is often held up as a testament to the power of
branding — just attach the Virgin name to a new business and
watch the money roll in. In fact, Branson’s new businesses have
succeeded when they offered real value for the money and had
something — better service, sharper design, an easier customer
experience — that their competitors didn’t. The best Virgin
companies have inspired not just satisfaction but devotion
among their customers. Virgin America, his U.S.-based airline,
for instance, leapt to the top of consumer surveys almost as soon
as it debuted. When that component was missing, however, even
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the splashiest marketing about the likelihood that their

couldn’t make up the businesses will succeed. In
difference. For the debut of other words, they’re willing to
Virgin Cola, Branson rather gamble on an uncertain future
amazingly drove a tank because they don’t really
through a wall of Coke cans in understand how unlikely
New York’s Times Square. business success is. Branson,
But Virgin Cola couldn’t break by contrast, is both exceedingly
through, and within three optimistic and exceedingly
years it was off the shelves. comfortable with risks of all
Today, Branson says: kinds.
“Declaring a soft drink war on In that respect, it’s
Coke was madness. I consider unsurprising that his most
our cola venture to be one important recent project is
of the biggest mistakes we risky in both a business and a
ever made.” Then he adds literal sense. That project is
something telling: “But I still Virgin Galactic, a venture
wouldn’t change a thing.” whose goal, in Branson’s
And that’s what makes words, is “democratising
Branson so unusual. Business access to space.” The company,
people talk all the time about which was founded in 2004,
how important it is to take has promised to build a small,
risks, but in the end, few of two-pilot, six-passenger ship
them are truly comfortable that can launch from a base in
with the possibility that things New Mexico, fly up more than
might not work out. Branson 200,000 feet, leaving Earth’s
seems to genuinely embrace atmosphere, and then glide
it, and that’s allowed him to before returning to Earth. The
do more — and risk more — prospect of this is alluring
TOP: For the debut of his failed Virgin Cola, Branson drove a
than most. That insatiable enough that 700 people have
tank through a wall of Coke cans in New York’s Times Square.
urge to tempt fate isn’t only “I consider our cola venture to be one of the biggest mistakes put down deposits on future
true of Branson’s business life. we ever made. But I still wouldn’t change a thing; ABOVE: His flights, at a reputed cost of
In the late ’80s, after Branson next venture, Virgin Galactic, will send ordinary people into US$250,000 apiece.
had helped set a record for space — he’s already built the spacecraft like this VSS Unity As a business, the stakes
the fastest crossing of the involved in space travel are as
Atlantic via powerboat, a serious as they get. In the fall of
famous balloonist named Per Lindstrand asked him to try to 2014, the company’s SpaceShipTwo broke apart and crashed on
cross the same ocean in a hot-air balloon. As Branson put it, a test flight, killing one of the two pilots. And though the National
“I had never been in a balloon before. No one had ever flown Transportation Safety Board concluded the accident was the
that far in a balloon before. It was mad. It was too risky.” result of the copilot’s error, it was nonetheless a major setback
Of course he went. The trip ended with Lindstrand and Branson for the company, and there was speculation at the time that it
being rescued from the icy sea off the coast of Scotland, after would simply shut down. Instead, against the odds yet again,
first Lindstrand and then Branson had leapt from the balloon Branson regrouped, and the new SpaceShipTwo is now
into the ocean because they missed the beach where they had scheduled for test flights later this year. Branson is saying that
intended to land. Branson’s verdict on the trip: “It was an consumers will be in space before the end of the decade.
amazing experience.” And, in fact, a few years later he and That may well be a crazy bet. But Branson has made his
Lindstrand decided to try to cross the Pacific in a balloon, fortune on crazy bets. And with Virgin Galactic, he’s actually
a venture that again nearly ended in complete disaster. going further than he has before. Instead of just shaking up
Foolhardy as these “public attempts at self-destruction” an entrenched industry, he’s attempting to create an entirely
(as Branson has called them) may seem to some, there’s also new one. This is, in a way, what his entire career has been
something inspiring about Branson’s willingness to throw building toward: a genuinely audacious project that pushes
caution to the wind — literally, in the case of his balloon trips. against the boundaries of what people think is possible.
And while it’s true that there was often a Virgin logo plastered In economic terms, Virgin Galactic may not be purely rational.
somewhere, it’s clear he wasn’t doing all this stuff just as But that actually makes the project all the more valuable.
a marketing ploy. He was doing it because he liked it. As he What an economy needs are precisely those people who are
puts it, “Whether the challenges are physical or financial — or willing to take gambles that a more prudent analysis would
sometimes both — fun, a.k.a. excitement, has for me always counsel against. We live in a time when big corporations are
been inextricably linked with taking risks, and sometimes sitting on huge cash hoards, because they can’t find any
perhaps some pretty insane ones.” investments they think are worth the risk. And while that may
This wide-ranging need to push limits makes Branson be smart for them, it’s bad for the rest of us, since it means
unusual even among entrepreneurs. In fact, studies of all that money isn’t being put to work. Branson, by contrast,
entrepreneurs suggest that most are not actually risk- seeking has the attitude of a true entrepreneur: “Money is for making
in their non-business lives. They’re just way too optimistic things happen.” And make things happen he has. ■

6 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
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SEAR C H ‘ MAXIM AUSTRALIA’ THROUGH
ONE OF OUR DIGITAL PARTNERS
STYLE

CH R ISTIAAN &
NICK WEAR: ECCO
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ECCO.COM; SIK SILK
AUS.SI KSI LK.COM;
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6 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
 HANGIN’
WITH THE
HIPSTERS
Hilarious Australian duo CHRISTIAAN VAN VUUREN (left)
and NICK BOSHIER (right), aka the Bondi Hipsters, get
into gear for the another season of their successful
comedy series – brace yourselves for Soul Mates II

I N T E R V I E W BY S A N T I P I N TA D O STYLI NG ADR IANA DI B P H OTO G R A P H E D BY R U P E R T K A L D O R MAXI M.COM.AU 6 7

STYLE
H ow did you guys enjoy your MAXIM fashion shoot?
CHRISTIAAN: Everyone was lovely. The photographer was
gentle and totally not sleazy. He made me feel really safe
and quite confident about my body. I never felt for a minute
that he was going to take advantage of me or try to make a move.
He was genuinely professional, as were all the people on set.
Nobody asked me to show a bit more leg or slip out some side-
boob or anything like that.
NICK: It was such a pleasure. I found having to sit or stand in front
of a camera, and not be a twat, quite refreshing.
Tell us more about the shoot.
C: We shot at a little place in Bondi, Sydney, called Luis Tan.
Good vibes, fun times, colourful walls, and it was new for me
to have my hair gelled down.
N: And the styling was excellent — I wore stuff that I normally
wouldn’t wear and clothes that were actually “cool” for once.
I normally have a pair of jeans that I wear to oblivion and a black
or blue shirt — so yeah, this shoot made me look like I was
a functional, trendy member of society for a few sweet hours.
What did you love about it?
C: I loved the process of being pampered and having people
touching my head, face and body. You know when you get a
haircut and there’s kind of a sensual feeling you get from someone
staring at the back of your head, focusing on it entirely? It’s like
that, but it lasts all day and doesn’t cost you $15.
N: There was caffeine, good music, and good humans afoot.
I’d say I loved having to do “poses” that increased my handsomity
— I quite liked that.
Do you consider yourselves fashionistas?
C: I need other people to do my shopping for me. If it were up to
me I’d only ever wear a Star Wars T-shirt, a pair of track pants and
a hoody. My girlfriend recently took me to Westfield for a winter
makeover and the first shop we went into was North Face. After
10 minutes I was sick of shopping, so I bought 10 new winter
items from one shop and went home. Since then, people think
I’m a Canadian cross-country skier or an Icelandic trail runner.
6 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
N: I’m really not a fashionista. I like to look nice enough,
I guess, and I like to be comfortable, but that doesn’t make
me fashion conscious. It makes me body conscious I guess.
Every now and then I purchase some fruity goods to shake things
up. I have a pair of velour Nikes that I love — and that tends
to make people think I know what’s up. I don’t know what’s up.
Describe your main fashion sense.
C: Hipster yobbo adult kid with wilfully mismatched socks.
N: Simple, manageable and mostly black.
What’s the most embarrassing item in your wardrobe?
C: That dead body from seven years ago… I mean, nothing.
N: I still have the G-string used on season one of Soul Mates
from when we’re dressed as the Cavemen.
What’s the worst thing your mum made you wear as a child?
C: Matching top and bottom baggy fluoro tracksuits and
rollerblades. I can’t remember if it was my choice or mum’s.
I’ll blame it on mum because she’s not here.
N: I remember getting dressed up to go to a school dance in
Year 5. My brother and mum made me wear a leather cap like the
biker dude from The Village People. I remember being laughed
at by the teachers and stared at by the kids. Not ideal.
What’s the most expensive item in your wardrobe?
C: One of my new North Face jackets.
N: My most expensive item, per surface area of material,
would be my R.M. Williams boots. I have a 15-year-old pair
and a two-year-old pair.
What do you look for in a suit?
C: Something that makes me look better than I look naked.
Actually, my new favourite suits are the ones worn by the Peaky
Blinders cast.
N: I look for comfort and simplicity. I’m not the kind of human
who knows what to do with a pocket square or what suit to
wear for what occasion. So, if I can find one suit that fits all those
occasions then I’m a content human.
MAXI M.COM.AU 6 9
STYLE
What fashion advice would your Bondi Hipsters characters,
Dom and Adrian, have for our readers?
C: If Dom and Adrian were here they would tell you to stop
copying what other people wear, and wear whatever you like.
The weird thing about fashion these days, is the shitter
clothes you wear, the cooler you look. People take hours to
try and make it look like they just rolled in off the back end
of a three-day bender.
N: And they would also say, “Listen, brah, what you can apply
to the social zeitgeist, you should apply to your clothes. For
example, there is a great deal of gender awareness, and the follies
of gender, at the moment — so wear a carboard box and Crocs
because gender is misleading. Be yourself, don’t be your body.”
How did Dom and Adrian come about?
C: I told Nick I had this idea about two guys from Bondi who set up
their own hipster fashion label, and who have all these weird
fashion ideas, and they just sit around Bondi talking themselves
up without actually doing much. Then we built it out from there,
collectively jamming on script and shooting videos whenever we
had the chance. We got a lot of help from my brother Connor,
too, who also wrote a lot of scripts and directed a lot of the videos.
Essentially the core comedic idea of the Bondi Hipsters became
based around people who think they are making the world
a better place whilst being clearly part of the problem. It’s also
about the relentless pursuits involved with trying to stay cool.
Tell us about your TV show Soul Mates?
N: Soul Mates are the Bondi Hipster characters, Dom and Adrian,
reincarnated in different lifetimes through the course of human
history. I think, at least for those who believe that reincarnation
is a thing, that it’s not out of the question that we can bump
into the same person lifetime after lifetime. When we stumbled
on this concept for the show, we were excited because of the
depth it could give us, in that, we could explore infinite time
periods and an infinite character spectrum. Quite FUN!
7 0 MAXI M.COM.AU H A I R & M A K E - U P L E A H K E L LY
Soul Mates has gone global too, right?
C: Yes, we’ve been lucky enough to pick up a partner in the USA,
in the form of SeeSo. It’s a new SVOD network backed by
NBCU and they’ve picked up season one, and cofinanced and
co-produced season two along with the ABC here in Australia.
This means we have a bit more money to play with in the
production budget and access to an audience in the US. We’ve
also been lucky enough that season one has been picked up by
Netflix in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland.
What can we expect from Soul Mates II?
C: Hopefully laughs, engaging stories, interesting characters
and absurd concepts. We have a new story set in Ancient
Egypt, which on one hand is like a f—ked up family drama
inspired by Game of Thrones, and on the other hand is
a workplace comedy where two guys are struggling with the
day-to-day work problems associated with building a tomb like
the Temple of Doom.
N: I think overall it’s a better season. Season one we were ironing
out some kinks as creators and were a bit nervous about the
whole thing. This season we sublimated those nerves into
productive, creative places. There’s better writing, better
performance, and better “finishing” of the show in its entirety.
Finally, describe a typical day in your life.
N: I get up very early, normally, and do some sort of exercise
— yoga, running, something. I worship the ground breakfast
walks on, so every morning I make a bit of a thing out of
breakfast. Then the rest of the day is meetings about doing
creative things or doing creative things.
C: Eat. Sleep. Wank. Repeat… until about 10am. Then I do normal
things like working and pursuing my life goals. ■
Soul Mates II airs on the ABC 9:30pm Wednesdays
from August 3 and is also available on ABC iview
LO C AT I O N T H E H O U S E O F L U I S TA N , B O N D I B E A C H , SY D N E Y
SPORT

7 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
AUSTRALIAN MMA FIGHTER SOA ‘THE HULK’ PALELEI’S
TRUE STORY OF HARDSHIP, BELIEF AND REDEMPTION

From a young age Australian mixed martial arts

(MMA) fighter Soa ‘The Hulk’ Palelei had to roll
with the punches to survive. Sent to Tonga to
become a man, Soa was thrust into poverty as he
worked on the family farm alongside his cousins.
Soa’s luck took a turn for the worse when he
returned from Tonga to live with his short-
tempered uncle in Newcastle, New South Wales.
The 11-year-old faced an almost daily barrage of
beatings with anything his uncle could find, from
electrical cords to planks of wood. He ran away to
survive, living it rough on the streets for months.
After reconnecting with his parents, Soa’s life
began to turn around. He excelled at sports and
soon joined a UK-based professional rugby team.
Although he abandoned his dreams of playing
rugby to support his young family, he later rose
to the top of his game in MMA. He made his
professional debut in 2002, winning his first
seven fights. This led to a contract in the Ultimate
Fighting Championship, but with the loss of his
first UFC fight Soa’s world came crashing down.
He sank into depression and faced one of his
toughest battles yet — overcoming his personal
demons to return to form.

MAXI M.COM.AU 7 3
SPORT

ometimes, leading up to a fight a

fighter will get injured and they just
pull out. Most of the time, unless it’s
a title shot, it’s no big deal. They get
booked again when they can heal
and all is forgotten once they actually
get the chance to step into the cage.
But for me, this was a fight I just
couldn’t pull out of. There was way
too much on the line. This was my
first fight back in the UFC. After
yelling and screaming to everybody
who would listen that I was gonna
get back to the UFC, I could not
pull out. I had told Dana White —
President of the UFC — over and over again that I would put on a show
for the fans and keep knocking people out. If I pulled out of the fight
I would have looked like a liar. I didn’t wanna let down people who
had paid for their tickets to fly over to the States to watch me fight.
I didn’t wanna let people think they were wasting their money by
believing in me. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone pissing their
money away because of me. There was so much to think about
when that rib popped.
Despite being in more pain than you could ever imagine, I flew
out on the Sunday. As soon as we landed I went and saw a doctor by
the name of Michael Gordon. Dr Gordon was the doctor for the NBA
team the Milwaukee Bucks, he was one of the best sports physicians
we could find. I knew I needed to see the best in order to have any
TOP: The Hulk becomes the IKBF heavyweight champion in 2012;
chance of walking into the Octagon with as little pain as possible. ABOVE: Sportsmanship to the max with now retired fighter Elvis
I asked him for something to help with the pain — I wanted a cortisone Sinosic in 2003; BELOW: Spot Soa in his Year 3 class pic in 1985
injection just to tide me over but he said he couldn’t give me one.
He said that if I fought and something popped and then floated
and ruptured, I’d be in a pretty bad spot. If something really bad
happened, it’d be on him and he wasn’t gonna take the risk. I wasn’t
happy about it at first, but I think he made the right call. I wanted to
fight so badly at that point, but I didn’t want to give my life for that
fight. He gave me some tablets to try and help with the pain but they
did nothing. I was kinda stuck and I had nobody to blame but myself.
It was a freak accident but at the same time when shit like that happens
it’s often a sign your body is trying to tell you something. I’d pushed
through with such a long camp. Even though I still felt pretty good,
I knew that all the aches and pains going into the sparring sessions
and countless strength and conditioning sessions were gonna amount

“I COULDN’T
REALLY COMMIT to something eventually. I was lucky that it wasn’t more serious than
a fractured rib, although anybody who has ever injured a rib will tell
TO ANY STRIKES, ya, it’s a f—king hard grind when you try and do literally anything.
I somehow made it to weigh-in day and that’s when things started
I MUST HAVE LOOKED to get a little tricky. The doctors have to check us over so that we can
be cleared to fight and when the doctor felt around my ribs I was in so
LIKE COMPLETE SHIT much pain. I shrugged it all off, I played it up, I was The Hulk, having

AND NOTHING LIKE THE a joke, having a chat — pretty much doing anything that I could to take
my mind off the absolute hell on earth that was going on inside my

MONSTER THAT I HAD body. In some of my weigh-in photos, if you look close enough you
can see that my rib is popping out a bit. To most people I just kinda

BEEN FOR THE EIGHT looked like this big bloke with love handles, but man, those ribs were
not supposed to be like that.
PREVIOUS FIGHTS.” Going into the fight my number one goal was to get the job done

7 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
SPORT

“ANYBODY WHO
HAS EVER INJURED
A RIB WILL TELL YA,
IT’S A F—KING HARD GRIND
WHEN YOU TRY AND DO
LITERALLY ANYTHING.”
within the first round. It was obvious I had to finish things as soon
as possible. I knew that with the condition my body was in, I had
no choice but to try and take the fight out early. Getting the fight
to the ground was my only path to victory. Things didn’t go to plan
— at all. Right away I took Nikita [Krylov] down but as we hit the floor
I landed on his knee and I felt another pop around my ribs. I couldn’t
breathe and I must have looked like a sloth who had done nothing to
prepare for the fight. Every time I opened my move I was gasping for
air, I was desperate — like I was doing everything that I could just to
survive. I had these really short breaths and the rest of round one
was just me trying to hang on and get through it at all costs. When
the bell rang for the end of the first I knew that my rib was f—ked. In
the corner I told Cade Brown — one of my cornermen — that I thought
my rib was broken he said, ‘F—k your rib’ and when the referee came
to check on me he told the ref I was fine. If it wasn’t for him I don’t
think the fight would have continued. He singlehandedly kept my
UFC career alive at that point. Cade told me that I couldn’t give up,
I had to go back out there.
I went back out and did another round of surviving. It was hell.
I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t really commit to any strikes, I must
have looked like complete shit and nothing like the monster that
I had been for the eight previous fights. The fight felt like it was
dragging on forever. We went into the third round, and that’s when
I dropped Nikita. As soon as my opportunity came, even though
I was absolutely spent, I knew I had to take it. I jumped on him and
did the ground and pound for the win. If only it had happened 10
minutes earlier! I was lucky in a way that Nikita gassed pretty badly
too. He was in rough shape, if it had been someone else in good shape
and fighting fit, I think there’s a chance I would have lost that fight.
I was in so much pain but I managed to walk away from my UFC
return with a win. That was a big f—k you to everybody who said
I couldn’t win in the UFC. It was a hard night’s work and it wasn’t
pretty, but it was a win. I was taken to hospital straight away because
my rib was in pretty bad shape. I stayed there for a few hours getting
checked out, pretty much out of it with the meds they gave me for
the pain. But as soon as I got back to the hotel I was in excruciating
pain again. I had to sleep sitting up because if I tried to sleep on my
back it felt like my lungs were collapsing. By that point it felt like
the fight had taken place days ago. So much had happened, and my
mind was racing with the pain. Those hours felt so long. After the
fight I remember Dana White coming out and saying how bad that
fight was. His exact words were that the fight ‘was embarrassing’.
I agreed. It was embarrassing. I should have been better than that. ■

TOP: The Hulk ready for any battle that involves a cage and
a few rounds; ABOVE LEFT: With UFC President Dana White;
ABOVE RIGHT: Soa with his three kids Jonah, Hannah and Iesha
This extract from Face Your Fears by
Soa ‘The Hulk’ Palelei with Neil Rooke and
published by Michael Joseph is out now, $35rrp

7 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
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MYRUN is ideal. I can juggle my
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It’s the ideal running partner.
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If music and training go hand
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MAXI M.COM.AU 7 7
 In a new documentary, globe-trotting photographer Steven Lyon goes where the wild things are
BY J O H N O RT VE D P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y S T E V E N LY O N
P
ho
otographer Steven Lyon is probably best known for
hiss cinematic, black-and-white portraits of some of the
woorld’s most exquisite women, who more often than
ot pose for him wearing nothing more than a
no
provocative e pout. As a lensman for top magazines and fashion
campaigns, he’s seen enough exotic locations to fill several
lifetimes. H He also happens to be ridiculously good-looking,
in the rugg gedly handsome, tattooed kind of way that makes it
easier to swwallow that he was also once a top male model.
First disccovered on the streets of Los Angeles by Andy Warhol
in the ’80s, he went on to become the face of Versace, Jean
Paul Gaultiier, and Trussardi. He posed with Iman, nude,
and partied d endlessly. Life was good. But it wasn’t until he picked
up a camera that things got really interesting: Over the past
20 years, L Lyons has traveled the world from his home base
in Paris — wwith supermodel girlfriends like Lara Stone and Edita
Vilkeviciute e — adding adventurer, documentarian, and now
activist to his
h résumé.
One of h his favourite destinations became Africa, where he
once lived among the nomad Himba tribe. The trip inspired
many returns and some lengthy safaris, which ultimately led to
his latest prroject, Something That Matters, a documentary that
follows Lyon n on a 11,00km continent. “II told my
00km trek across the continent
agents to put everything on hold,” recalls Lyon, drinking a beer
7 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
in his cavernous photo studio in the Mana Contemporary
building in Jersey City, flanked by his American Staffordshire
terrier, Rudy, “so I could sleep in shit and never shower for four
months.” With a potential debut at Sundance in 2017, the film
will, he hopes, raise awareness of the plight of endangered
African rhinos. “They’ll be the first of the big five who will go
extinct,” he says. “There are more elephants killed, but there are
also way more of them. In 2010, there were 150 rhinos killed
each year; last year it was 2,000.”
Lyon had never made a documentary before, nor shot
wildlife, but he felt that his work in fashion photography
over the decades informed his storytelling. “I like my editorials
to have an arc,” he explains, “like a screenplay. I don’t want
a girl to look sexy, or a couple to look like they want to f—k each
other; I want them to actually have that emotion.” His new
commitment to conservation is keeping him laser-focused
on the film, but that isn’t to say Lyon has abandoned his core.
“I’ll go back and shoot beautiful women in their underwear in the
desert, no problem,” he laughs. “I’m proud of the photo
work I’ve done. I’ve lived a pretty cool life, done a lot of cool
things, but this my chance to do something that matters.
Hence the title.”
Presented here
here, a selected anthology of Lyon’s
Lyon s sexiest work
(at least, the stuff we could print).
Above: Steven photographed while filming his documentary in South Africa
Alana Marie shot in Ko Samui island, Thailand

MAXI M.COM.AU 7 9
 Steven captured this moment in Tanzania at Arusha while on safari

Photographed in South Africa during filming for his documentary Also snapped in Tanzania at Arusha while on safari

8 0 MAXI M.COM.AU
Zita Galgociova shot on
Ko Samui island in Thailand
MAXI M.COM.AU 8 1
 Petra Kubatova shot
in Mykonos, Gsreece
8 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
Amber Arbucci phptographed in Tulum, Mexico

Photo shoot with Nadine Strittmatter in Havana, Cuba

MAXI M.COM.AU 8 3
 Photo shoot with Edita Vilkeviciute in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Miimii Sml in Deauville, France Melinda Toth, Petra Kubatova and Eva Bohatova in Lombardy, Italy

8 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
Zita Galgociova shot on
Ko Samui island in Thailand

MAXI M.COM.AU 8 5
 Brilliant
Disguise
From stage to screen, Michael
Shannon has shown himself
to be a man of many faces

BY T. C O L E R A C H E L
P H OTO G R A P H E D BY A L B E R T WAT S O N

Since garnering an Oscar nomination for

his role in 2008’s Revolutionary Road,
Michael Shannon has effortlessly navigated
thoughtful indies like Take Shelter and
99 Homes, the serious period drama
of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, big-
ticket Hollywood blockbusters (he plays
supervillain General Zod in Zack Snyder’s
Man of Steel), and his first love — the stage.
In addition to playing a father desperate
to protect his supernatural son in
Jeff Nichols’ forthcoming sci-fi thriller,
Midnight Special, Shannon will bring his
signature intensity to the big screen multiple
times this year — including a turn as “the
King” himself in Elvis & Nixon — before
facing off against Jessica Lange in the
Broadway revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Long
Day’s Journey into Night.

A lot of people might not know that

you also play in a band (Corporal). Did
you always do music as well as act?
I’ve been doing music since before I was
acting. Honestly, music is my favourite
thing, more than any of the other stuff. It’s
what I love. I like acting, but I fantasise
about not acting and devoting all my energy
to the band. But I also know that it’s kind
of a scarlet letter to try to be an actor playing
in a band. Everybody secretly thinks it’s silly
— or not even secretly. Blatantly.

We always think of you first and

foremost as a theatre actor. Is there
something that the experience of being
in front of a live audience provides you
that acting in films does not?
The super-simple answer to that question
is that onstage is where I feel the most
like I’m actually alive. Everything that I’m
doing — every single thing that I’m doing
with every part of my being — is expression.
In the life situations we all deal with —
professional situations, family situations,
whatever — you’re constantly monitoring
yourself and trying to follow certain rules,
or trying to accomplish things, trying to

8 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
 clean the toilet, whatever the hell you’re
trying to do. But when I’m onstage, I think,
“I’m here. I’m really f—king here. Let’s go.”
I’m there to tell a story. To me, it’s just where
I feel the most alive. Even with film, you
don’t get that, because film is very clinical
and technical and molecular — “Let’s get
this right today,” you know? “Let’s get this
little square inch right today.” But when
you go out on the stage, it’s like, “Whew,”
and you feel everybody paying attention
to the same thing and trying to get as
much out of it as they humanly can.
That’s a beautiful thing to me.
You leave yourself — you literally
forget who you are for a second,
if it’s good. It’s like one of these
sci-fi movies; you become the
glowing orb or something. You’re just
sitting there witnessing something.
Then the lights come back up and
you’re like, “Oh, I’m me.”
You’ve been fortunate enough to
be involved in an insanely wide
variety of projects — everything
from theatre to film to TV. Do
G ROOM I NG J O R DAN LO N G FO R EXC LU S IVE ARTI STS MANAG E M E NT U S I N G LA M E R
you have any dream projects?
Or roles you wish people would
offer you that they don’t?
I can’t say that I do, really. I don’t have
anything in my pocket that I’m like,
“But what I really want to do is this.”
The projects that I really love to do
are theatre projects. With film, I ride
the wave. I say, “Well, who’s going
to call me next? What’ve they got?”
It’s much more about the people.
There are people I want to work
with. I don’t know what the
story is, or who the character is,
but I know I want to work with
David Lynch. I want to work with Paul
Thomas Anderson. Who wouldn’t? But
I don’t have a specific dream part that
I want to play, like Hamlet. I don’t have that.
One thing I actually really enjoy doing in
theatre is revisiting material. Probably my
favourite writer is Eugène Ionesco, and I’ve
done a play of his, The Killer, twice, and
I’d like to do it again. I’d like to do it every
15 years, just to keep doing it. That’s how it
used to be. In ancient Rome, an actor would
play the same character their whole life.
That’s a pretty fascinating proposition.
You’d be able to see how much
your life experience changes the
N . A . P.
performance as you get older, what
new things you’d bring to it each time.
Yeah, to me it’s all about the ebb and flow
STYLI NG
of your subconscious. We’re all like boats
in the sea, picking up barnacles. The older
you get, the more barnacles you get. The
barnacles, if you’re an actor and you’re
doing a play, are useful, because it’s
like, well, these are the experiences I’ve
had since the last time I did it. Maybe
the last time I did it, when I said this
particular line, I had no idea what I was
talking about, and now I’ll have a better idea
what this might mean.
Actors often get a bad rap among
creatives as being terrible narcissists.
Yeah. That’s the stereotype. Most of
the actors I’m friends with are actually
Opposite page: Anorak, turtleneck sweater, and
track pants, Michael Kors; This page: Hoodie, THEORY
empathetic people who spend their time
trying to figure out how to be other people
or how to understand them. Whereas a lot
of my friends who are writers and artists
spend their time…
Thinking about themselves?
That’s a very astute observation. I believe
that acting is a service industry. That’s why
actors make good waiters. You’re a servant.
The best acting is invisible, it doesn’t call
attention to itself, you don’t even know it’s
happening. As an actor, you are an aperture
between things: Here’s what the writer and
the director want the audience to see, and
here’s the audience. You are the portal.
People aren’t supposed to be sitting there
thinking, “Wow, Bob’s giving such a great
performance right now.”
Your name came up recently at a
dinner party, and someone said,
“Oh, he’s a movie star… but he’s also
an actor.” What do you make of that?
That’s funny. I feel that way about Paul
Newman. I think Paul Newman was an
incredible actor. I think he was as good
as Brando or anybody else. He was
also incredibly handsome. But I don’t
think Newman really gets the credit he
deserves. He gave some mind-boggling
performances. He’s a perfect example of
what I’m talking about. He’s never begging
for you to think he’s great. All he’s doing
is telling the story. That’s all he’s f—king
doing. What drives me crazy
are actors who make it about
themselves. It’s like what’s more
important is, “What’s happening
to me?” When actually, who
cares? When somebody’s doing
surgery, nobody is standing
around thinking, “What’s the
surgeon thinking right now?”
Hopefully all the surgeon is
thinking about is getting your
appendix out.
People are always so
desperate to make it in
this industry, but for you it
seems like things happened
really organically. You
worked very hard amassing
this incredible body of work
that eventually paid off.
People always ask me for
advice. One of the things you’ve
got to remember is, it’s not just
about how good you are at
your job, but also that people
have to want to be around
you. If you’re a f—king dick,
nobody’s going to want to be
around you for 12 hours on a set.
How do you feel about, well, having
to do stuff like this? Talking about
yourself in interviews, dissecting
what you do for a living?
It’s something that you gradually
understand. The first time anybody thinks it’s
worthwhile to interview you, it’s very
flattering. It’s like, “Wow. Finally I can
tell the world everything I think and feel!”
Then that phase ends, and you’re like,
“Oh, this is a pain in the ass.” The great,
dirty, scary secret is that you don’t
actually have anything to say. People
are asking me these questions, and
I don’t have anything to say. Then
you get through that. For me, anyway,
you get to a point where you’re just trying
to have a conversation. That’s all I ever
really want to do anyway. I just want to have
a conversation. ■
MAXI M.COM.AU 8 7
 COOL COMFORT
COMES FROM THE
RICH TEXTURES
AND TAILORED
CUTS OF THE FINEST
DESIGNER OVERCOATS
P H OTO G R A P H E D BY A M I T I S R A E L I
S T Y L E D B Y W AY N E G R O S S

8 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
 T H I S PA G E :
C O AT, J A C K E T,
S H I R T, A N D
TIE, DOLCE &
GAB BANA

OPPOSITE
PA G E :
C O AT, S U I T,
S W E AT E R , A N D
S H I R T, T O M M Y
HILFIGER

MAXI M.COM.AU 8 9
STYLE

T H I S PA G E :
C O AT, S W E AT E R ,
PA N TS , A N D
SHOES, BOSS

O P P O S I T E PA G E :
C O AT A N D PA N T S ,
B U R B E R RY
PRORSUM

9 0 MAXI M.COM.AU
MAXI M.COM.AU 9 1
STYLE

M O D E L R O C H B A R B O T AT S U C C E S S M O D E L S
G R O O M I N G C H R I S T I A N F R I T Z E N WA N K E R

T H I S PA G E :
C O AT, S W E AT E R ,
A N D PA N TS ,
LOU IS VU ITTON

O P P O S I T E PA G E :
C O AT, C A R D I G A N ,
A N D PA N TS ,
VE R SAC E

9 2 MAXI M.COM.AU
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and the web’s hottest video content. Well, the
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GAMES
TheBigShow
The annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3) has come and gone and there’s a flurry of exciting
announcements and reveals. Here is a window into what happened at the main press conferences
Sony PlayStation
¬ 1 The star of Sony’s show was God of War
(PS4), which sees Kratos return in an all-new
game as a father, and this time facing off
against the worst of Norse mythology.
It looks bloody awesome.
¬ SOCOM developer Bend Studio is
working on a new open-world, post-Zombie
outbreak biker game called Days Gone (PS4).
¬ Release dates landed for big PlayStation 4
releases The Last Guardian (Oct 26),
Horizon: Zero Dawn (Mar 1, 2017)
and PlayStation VR (Oct 13).
¬ A number of exciting announcements
were made for PlayStation’s virtual reality
hardware, including the incredible new
Resident Evil 7, a Star Wars Battlefront
X-Wing spin-off, Final Fantasy XV,
a Batman Arkham VR spin-off and
a new VR FPS called Farpoint.
¬ The first three Crash Bandicoot
games are getting an HD remaster
and a release on PS4 in 2017.
¬ Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima
announced his new game — Death Stranding
— which looks typically bizarre, and stars
The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus.
¬ Resistance and Ratchet & Clank developer
Insomniac Games is taking control of a new
Spider-Man game for the PS4.
Ubisoft
¬ 2 Exciting open-world hacking game
Watch Dogs 2 (PC, PS4, XBO) was
announced, and will be out November 15.
¬ Ubisoft announced Star Trek: Bridge Crew,
a VR experience that allows you to form a
team of Trekkies with friends, and literally
sit on the command bridge as you boldly go.
¬ Steep is a brand new, Go Pro-sponsored
game that Ubisoft is making and it’s basically
an extreme sports MMO.
¬ We got a few other important release dates,
too, including South Park: The Fractured
But Whole (PS4, XBO, PC – Dec 6), For Honor
(PS4, XBO, PC – Feb 14, 2017) and Ghost
Recon Wildlands (PS4, XBO, PC - Mar 7, 2017).
¬ The next DLC pack for The Division
will be called Survival, and revolves
around a terrible blizzard.
¬ Cute little indie game Grow Home
is getting a sequel, called Grow Up.
9 4 MAXI M.COM.AU
BY C H R I S STEAD
Microsoft Xbox
¬ In August, a new slim console called
the Xbox One S will be out. It’s 40% smaller,
has no external power brick, is white and
can display in 4K.
¬ For Christmas 2017, a fully upgraded
Xbox One console — currently called Project
Scorpio — will release. It will be the most
powerful console ever, with an eight-core
AMD APU with 320GB/s memory bandwidth
and six teraflops of graphical performance.
¬ The majority of upcoming Xbox One
games will be Cross Play compatible,
meaning you will be able to play against
people who own the game on PC.
¬ Dead Rising 4 was announced for Xbox
One and PC, plus it will be out this year
on December 6. Forza Horizon 3 was also
confirmed, and will launch on September 27.
¬ Release dates also arrived for ReCore
(Sep 13), Gears of War 4 (Oct 11) and
Halo Wars 2 (Feb 21, 2017).
¬ MMO survival-horror game State of
Decay 2 will be an Xbox One and PC
release, and is coming in 2017.
¬ A new Xbox Play Anywhere sticker will
appear on some games, and it means that
if you buy it on PC or on Xbox One, you
will own it on both formats.
Electronic Arts
¬ 3 Titanfall 2 (PC, XBO, PS4) is coming
on October 28 and it will feature a full
single player campaign alongside its already
popular multiplayer. Titans also now
have grappling hooks!
¬ Also getting a story mode is FIFA 17,
which will allow you to fill the boots
of a fully-acted, budding soccer star
hoping to make it big.
¬ Battlefield 1 (PC, PS4, XBO) will be out
October 21, and an hour-long, 64-player
multiplayer battle on the fields of World
War I blew the show away.
¬ Mass Effect Andromeda will be out
in March 2017. The game is set millions
of light years into the future, in an
unexplored galaxy.
¬ EA revealed it has three Star Wars games
in production; one is Star Wars Battlefront II
(2017), which is being worked on by Motive,
a new studio formed by Jade Raymond (who
created Assassin’s Creed). Another is a third-
person action game by Respawn of Titanfall
fame. The third is being made by Dead Space
creator Visceral Games.
¬ After the success of Unravel, EA has
opened up an Originals label, which
will focus on smaller indie-like games,
including the upcoming Fe.
Nintendo
Nintendo made the unusual step of focusing
almost all of its E3 press time on one game;
it was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the
Wild. Coming to the Wii U but also — more
excitingly — as a launch title for the Nintendo
NX in March 2017. It’s shaping up to be a huge
departure for the series, with a lot of modern
features. This includes a full open-world,
freedom to explore and complete dungeons
as you like, freedom to climb anything and
anywhere, and basic item crafting. Nintendo
also did announce a new IP for the 3DS;
an RPG called Ever Oasis.
Quite colourful, it looks
to mix strategy and
real-time combat with
adventure gameplay.
 2

1 3

Bethesda
¬ Quake Champions was the
big announcement of Bethesda’s
show, a return to the famous
FPS series, it is focused on
multiplayer and a blistering
framerate.
¬ PS4 and Xbox One gamers
are getting The Elder Scrolls
V: Skyrim HD remake on
October 28; the visual upgrade
is very impressive.
¬ After Prey 2 was cancelled
a few years ago, we were
surprised to see Prey return
at E3, although the bounty
hunter story is gone and
a futuristic fight for survival
against aliens on a space
station has replaced it.
¬ Elder Scrolls Legends
was announced, which is a
collectable card game revealed
for iOS, Android, PC and Mac.
¬ VR versions of Doom and
Fallout 4 were revealed.
¬ Dishonored 2 (PS4, XBO,
PC) got a release date and
it is November 11.

MAXI M.COM.AU 9 5
 GROOMING
Stay Hot
This Winter
The colder months can destroy your rugged good
looks. Here’s how to stay hot when the chill sets in
LIP LOVE
Keep a tube of Sukin
Organics Nourishing
Lip Treatment, $7.95,
sukinorganics.com, in your
pocket and use it regularly
throughout the day to nix
dry lips and prevent torn
skin or ulcers. It’s packed
with natural, plant-
based ingredients to
keep your lips smooth,
soft and smoochable.
THE FACE SAVERS
It’s pretty easy to keep
your dial looking good in
winter – it’s just a two-step
process, twice daily. Wash
with Handsome Facial
Wash, $29.95, which is an
awesome blend of organic
ylang ylang, orange and
9 6 MAXI M.COM.AU
bergamot essential oils. It
will clean your skin as well
as refresh your head (good
for hangover days). Follow
it up with Handsome
Facial Moisturiser, $55,
which contains
organic
avocado,
hempseed and
sandalwood.
This quenches
parched skin
better than a
cold beer after
a long day at the rugby.
https://ha.ndso.me/shop/
HANDY WORK
Your hands take a beating
in winter – playing footy,
gardening, working
outdoors and just general
wear and tear. Enlist HAIR HELP My Hair Moisture
a heavy-duty balm that Even your hair Shampoo, $22.95, and
will help prevent extreme succumbs to the Conditioner, $23.95,
dryness as well as ensure elements in winter, www.elenaustralia.
your cuticles (the skin either becoming frizzy, com, and Fudge Urban
around your fingernails) super dry, or just Rocker Wax, $9.95,
doesn’t tear or develop unmanageable. Invest http://www.fudge.
a painful hangnail. Try in a top-notch shampoo com/urban/
Green Foot Mama and conditionerr
Organic Skin, $29.95, to keep your SUN PROTECTION
www.greenfootmama.com hair well Don’t be fooled. The
It infuses replenishing hydrated, sun’s rays can still burn
botanicals like coconut and a styling and damage
oil, beeswax and shea paste, which your skin through
butter, will help keep winter’s darkest
to protect wayward locks clouds. Slap
skin and under control. on sunscreen
repair Unless you’re daily. Try the
damage. bald, in which you new Sun Bum
arly
Apply it regularly need to slap on as Original SPF50
throughout the day, taking much sunscreen Sunscreen Lotion,
care to massage into the as you can. Try $20.99, www.
nail bed of each finger. Eleven Australia Hydrate beautyhq.com.au
BY S H O N AG H WA L K E R
24 HOU RS TO LI V E
James
Magnussen
The Australian Olympic swimmer, also known
as the missile”, discusses his final day on earth
How do you want to die?
You’re probably expecting
me to say ‘by drowning’ but
I definitely don’t want to drown.
Maybe like doing something
extreme with my mates after
a big night on the beers.
Do you have any deathbed
confessions? Well, nothing
particular I’d like to share with
the MAXIM at this point in time.
Fine. What’s your last
meal? I’d probably just ask for
five or six varieties of chocolate
— white, dark, caramel, Pods,
Maltesers… just binge on it.
Are you going to Heaven
or Hell? Heaven, definitely.
When I was younger I used to
go to church every Sunday. So,
surely I’ve done my penance.
What do you say to God
when you get there? Could
I please just see if you’re real?
Which legendary people
will you hang out with in
the afterlife? Biggie, Tupac
and definitely some of the guys
from N.W.A. Maybe if Ice Cube
dies before me I could hang out
with him. That’d be awesome.
To whom on Earth do you
owe an apology? Probably
Mum and Dad for making them
go to my school for so many
meetings with the principal
when I was younger. I wasn’t
a bad boy I just enjoyed my
school days to the fullest.
Mum was a teacher at the
school and I had to do a re-
enrolment – that was awkward.
What’s your greatest
achievement on Earth?
It would have to be just doing
my family and friends proud.
What’s the dumbest thing
you ever did? Well, there’s a
decent list. Probably my best
9 8 MAXI M.COM.AU
I N T E R V I E W S A N T I P I N TA D O
blooper is trying to imitate
rugby league player Tamana
Tahu, who used to celebrate
scoring a try by dunking
the football over the goal
posts. When I was in Year
12 I thought if he could dunk
it I could swing off it, too.
I got a really good run up
and grabbed the crossbar
but because I had so
much momentum my legs
swung up and my body
was horizontal to the
ground – and then
I let go and took a
really hard hit in front
of the entire class. I
was laying there winded
while they all laughed.
Name one thing you’re
glad you’ll never have to
do again. Probably waking
up early for training. I’m really
not a morning person.
What are your mates saying
over your casket? That I lived
life to the fullest and it won’t
be the same without me.
Well, that’s what I’m hoping!
What’s written on your
tombstone? If I die any
time soon perhaps something
like, “James lived fast and
died young”.
Got any last words?
I’ve always liked this one
“WHEN I WAS
line from a 1983 movie called
The Outsiders, and I used to
YOUNGER I USED
always joke about it with my
mates in high school. It’s where TO GO TO CHURCH
the character of Johnny, played
by Ralph Macchio, says to EVERY SUNDAY.
his mate Ponyboy Curtis,
“Stay golden, Ponyboy.”
just before he dies. So I’d
SO, SURELY
probably say this to whoever
is around me no matter if
I’VE DONE
I know them or not. ■ MY PENANCE.”