Pittwater Life July 2024 Issue

News
Father and daughter in sync
If you haven’t heard of
Northern Beaches fatherand-daughter
entertainment
duo Ben and Zara,
you’re in the minority – more
than 50 million people have
viewed their hilarious videos
on social media.
It all began during COVID
lockdown in 2020, when the
pair started filming shows to
keep themselves amused.
“We were using Tik Tok to
film the videos,” explains
Ben, “but we were just sharing
them with the family for a
bit of fun.
“Then in September that
year we were talking about
whether to put one out to the
public and see what happened.
My wife (Lisa) and I
talked about it and decided to
release one – it very quickly
got a couple of hundred thousand
hits!”
Which in social media
terms is “loads”. And by
the time they released their
fourth video, they were getting
a million views.
“It wasn’t just the numbers,
it was the response from people
about how great it was,”
says Ben. “There was a lot
of praise about the dad-anddaughter
aspect.”
Their videos are brilliantly
made comedy sketches that
usually involve the pair lipsyncing
to a song. While Zara,
9, can be funny and goofy,
she’s usually the “straight
man” to Ben’s visual comedy.
“Zara is amazing and… and
then I’m the butt of the joke,”
laughs Ben. “It’s the classic
star-and-sidekick routine.
“But then if you’re going to
WHIRLWIND
SUCCESS:
Ben and Zara.
be the butt of the joke to anyone,
then it’s better it’s one of
your kids!” he concedes.
Ben was himself a ‘child
star’, filming his first commercial
at the age of nine
and spending a couple of
years in a soap 20 years ago.
Since 2011 he has ironically
been doing a lot of voiceover
work before their lip-syncing
variety-show format became
the “day job”.
Ben points out what they’re
doing is very different to being
influencers.
“The main thing is that
we’ll only continue to do it if
it remains fun,” he explains.
“Zara never wears make-up,
it’s all performance-based,
we’re not endorsing products.
We’re very much a family having
fun – it’s brought us all
closer together. We’re having
adventures as a family.”
According to Ben, after he
and Zara have worked out
who does which bit, Zara
spends five minutes in the
morning and five minutes in
the evening learning the lyrics
over a 3- to 4-day period.
When you watch a video you’ll
see how impressive that is.
Ben says that Zara was a
natural from the start.
“You can just tell the
character of your kids from
a young age and she was a
performer,” says Ben. “We’ve
done some TV work now and
Zara loves being on a set and
the atmosphere around it.
Live TV can be daunting but
she’s carefree.
“She definitely has acting
aspirations,” Ben continues.
“She played the granddaughter
in the Mother and Son remake.
And we’ve had a lot of
interest from overseas saying
she’s definitely got the chops
to become an actor.”
That interest has included
some big names: Buster
Rhymes posted a video Ben
and Zara made of his song,
saying ‘this kid embodies
Buster!’. Will Smith has
shared their videos, as has
Elton John. Dana White the
UFC boss follows them, plus
Courtney Cox, Chris Jenner.
“We have followers from
rugby league to Hollywood,”
says Ben. “When we did
Michael Jackson’s Earth song
we got 27 million hits on
Instagram, 20 million more
on Tik Tok and 5 million on
Facebook… it went crazy.”
The pair have appeared
on Channel 7’s Telethon,
along with Studio 10 and Play
School. A tour is planned with
dates to be released soon.
But Ben is aware of one
thing that might one day
scupper their success.
“We’ll keep going as long as
it remains fun for everyone
and as long as Zara is enjoying
it. But there might be a
day when she doesn’t want to
film videos with her dad,” he
laughs. – Rob Pegley
28 JULY 2024
The Local Voice Since 1991