LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Australian musician, comedian, actor and composer Tim Minchin is currently riding a wave of enormous international success. He's in huge demand in Hollywood, on Broadway, on London's West End, he's working on animated films, stage musicals, starring in television programs and selling out one-man shows. As the man himself admits, he's having to work hard to stay grounded and avoid falling into celebrity narcissism. Minchin's much-celebrated musical, Matilda, adapted from the Roald Dahl novel, opens in Australia this week. We sat down together in Sydney yesterday.

We meet again, Tim Minchin.

TIM MINCHIN, MUSICIAN & COMEDIAN: Yeah, it was nasty last time. There was a lot of blows.

LEIGH SALES: Now last time I interviewed you, Matilda was taking the world by storm and now, here it is, opening in Australia. It's got a whole life of its own now.

TIM MINCHIN: Yeah, it's amazing. It's cool to have contributed to something that lives and does its thing. Sometimes it freaks me out.

LEIGH SALES: For a musical to work, there is such an extreme amount of teamwork that goes into that and collaboration. You do a lot of solo shows as well. How do you enjoy that collaborative process on such a large scale?

TIM MINCHIN: I love it, I think, and it's kind of why I'm doing more of this and less of that. The buzz of performing is unparalleled and the joy of being involved in playing music and laughter and getting people clapping you is really buzzy, but there's something hard about collaborating that's really lovely. Also the push-pull. I mean, with Dennis and I - Dennis, who wrote the script, who's one of my favourite people on the planet, the first few weeks were like ... "But, I don't think you understand what I'm trying to do with ... Yes, good, but this - I need - I need you to change that line because it's ...". You know, and he's like, "But that lyric clashes with this ...". And I'm like, 'Well you have to change it." And then slowly you fall in love. You find your way in and then - and then if the show goes well, then you get to be best mates forever. If it's a total flop, you're like ...

LEIGH SALES: I told you!

TIM MINCHIN: That's right. Yeah, yeah.

LEIGH SALES: How do you know when you're working on something when it's finished, when it's good enough?

TIM MINCHIN: Well that is probably one of the biggest lessons I learnt. The thing you've got to remember is that a theatre piece is an artefact of what you made in the time you had, which is just so brilliant. And a painting's like that and a comedy show and all art is - needs to be seen as an artefact of what you did in the time you had. People get stuck on that. They write their novel for 30 years. "Oh, it's not ready." Don't - give yourself three months to write your first novel. Binge on it. Or maybe a year. Personally, I think what can't be made in a year's probably not worth my - you know, in a way. You've got to give yourself a time that - a restricted time is like the edge of the canvas or the two-hour mark at a musical. It's one of your parameters.

LEIGH SALES: Is that easier to say though than it is to do?

TIM MINCHIN: Yes, of course, so that has to be a discipline done.

LEIGH SALES: You've had so much success in recent years. How has it changed your life?

TIM MINCHIN: I've become unbearable.

LEIGH SALES: It's obvious. I know, that's where I was going with that question.

TIM MINCHIN: I'm rude to everyone around me. I punched a waiter. Ahh, I think it's - I think I've been very cautious about how to exploit the opportunities that have come along, so I've decided to concentrate on writing and be a bit behind the scenes more.

LEIGH SALES: Can you just take work now though - now that you want to do rather than that you have to pay the bills?

TIM MINCHIN: Yeah. Well, yeah, yep. For now. While Matilda runs, I'm more free to do nothing if I want, probably. But, you know, I have no interest in doing nothing. I didn't get into this industry for financial security. That would have been a crazy decision. What is amazing and what is almost unique, or at least very rare, is that I get to do so many different things and that's a conflation of a whole lot of cool stuff that happened. One is I got no success in my 20s, so I kept going: "OK, I'll do a play and then I'll compose a thing and then I'll do some - a band gig and then I'll do some comedy and I'll write a poem and I'll, you know, write an essay on science writing or whatever." And so by the time I had success, I had got some skills, I guess. I worry loads about kids who are 21 and do the X Factor from zero to whatever. A lot are just - 'cause even me getting just a little bit known as a 30-year-old or 32, to go through the experience of starting to get stopped on the street, which you've gone through and all that stuff, I was like, "Oh, this changes how you see yourself in the world," and I'm very interested in it psychologically. I mean, no-one likes to hear famous people talking about how hard it is being famous and none of it bothers me and I've moved to a city where no-one recognises me anyway now as kind of part of my game plan of not letting that do my head in, but it's a whole thing. You start sitting outside yourself and you become super self-aware and that almost inevitably turns to narcissism, which is why famous people are so screwy. It's not their fault. It's what humans do if everyone starts observing them, right?

LEIGH SALES: And it presumably can't help but change you when people are constantly saying, "Mr Minchin, would you like warm water or cold water? Would you like your water with lemon in it or no lemon in it?"

TIM MINCHIN: Yeah. And it changes you both in that you get used to being spoilt, but also in that it deskills you, so you get hopeless if you're not careful. And so, I don't know how a 21-year-old would not fall into those traps. And you should be poor in your 20s anyway 'cause that's when you develop your ideas and your values that are disconnected from acquisitions and wealth and all that, surely. It'd be good if you could just make sure no-one gets any money till they're 30.

LEIGH SALES: You can fill 10,000 seat auditoriums with your solo shows. Is there a certain pressure that comes with that or is it actually harder when you're in your 20s and playing small venues where everyone can individually make eye contact with you?

TIM MINCHIN: Ah, I think there's different types of pressure. I did a gig in Perth at the Freo Town Hall last week and I was really nervous in the first song, partly 'cause I hadn't practiced and wasn't doing comedy. You always want people to expect nothing and blow their minds. If they expect their minds blown, you're kinda screwed. That's why comedy careers often do that (draws a graph trajectory mid-air with his right index finger indicating rise and sharp decline) and that's why I've embraced the fact that it's zeitgeisty. But - not that I'm done. It's just - and I must say, actually, it doesn't particularly bother me. I know that's a thing, but it's not in my personality to - I see all - everything I do, all art, as an offer coming back to an artefact of what you did in the time given. It's some stuff, you know, and then you've just gotta not read reviews because reviews don't go into it with the same spirit.

LEIGH SALES: Well Tim, it's been fun to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming in.

TIM MINCHIN: It's a pleasure.