BROADCASTS.com

One of New Zealand\u2019s favourite comedians, Heath \u2018Chopper\u2019 Franklin is back from his break.\xa0

The Australian comic is returning from his three year break with a bang, back in New Zealand with fifteen shows as well as his set in the International Comedy Festival.\xa0

His tour kicks off today, as Chopper's 'Not Here To F*ck Spiders', the name of his tour setting the tone for the show.

His iconic persona \u2018Chopper\u2019 was based off the real life criminal in the 2000 movie by the same name, his career taking off from there.\xa0

\u201cI watched it when I was... early twenties, and you know, like a lot of the movies you watch when you get to that age, you just sort of watch it and then you absorb it slowly.\u201d\xa0

Franklin recounts hanging out with friends at parties and, prompted by friends going off to sleep early, doing an impression of the character. He then brought this through into the sketch comedy shows he was doing at the time.\xa0

The movie came out in the 2000s, and Franklin told Mike Hosking that there\u2019s a level of freedom in people no longer knowing the original story.\xa0

\u201cI find the thing that kind of weighs me down the most is, especially when I go to Melbourne where they\u2019re quite parochial and proud of even, you know, even the violence of their criminals, that yeah. You know, there\u2019s a constant kind of reference between what I do and what he would have done.\u201d\xa0

\u201cSo I really love coming to New Zealand where I kind of get to define what the character does, and I get to kind of step out of that shadow.\u201d\xa0

He was never trying to be a biographer, he told Hosking.\xa0

\u201cI was just a guy who liked a movie and made a dumb sketch.\u201d\xa0

LISTEN ABOVE\xa0\xa0\xa0

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.