How a near-death experience changed Jodi Matterson’s relationship with work

Jodi Matterson was bone tired, exhausted from a gruelling work schedule and the toll of a persistent chest infection, when she arrived at her hotel room for the night.

It was late at night and the Australian managing director of acclaimed production company Made Up Stories had driven back from a film shoot. She had battled against proper rest for weeks. Though on this night, the need for rest won out.

“It was 11 o’clock at night and my lung collapsed,” Matterson told Helen McCabe as part of FW’s Too Much podcast.  

“I couldn’t move. I couldn’t reach the phone. It took about two hours for me to actually call for help. Ambulance the whole thing.” 

The experience proved to Matterson she needed to take a beat.

“I think it’s a really clear example of sometimes you just need to stop and whatever happens happens and it’s going to be okay,” she said. 

“But there is that feeling of you can’t stop – you just have to push through, you have to push through, you have to push through.” 

To put Matterson’s schedule in context, she had just finished work in Victoria on the film The Dry, an adaptation of Jane Harper’s novel starring Eric Bana. 

Image credit: Getty Images

Then she travelled to Sydney for the film Penguin Bloom with Naomi Watts.

“We shot in Sydney on the Northern Beaches, but then we had to go to Thailand at the end of our Sydney shoot, and rolling from one film to the next, I was sick, I had a terrible chest infection, I was really, really sick,” she told McCabe. 

“I should have not gone to Thailand, I should have stopped. But of course, you can’t not go because you’ve worked so hard, you have to make sure that everything stays on track and you just have to keep going.”

So the producer, who got her start from putting on fairy parties, went to Thailand and soldiered on and finished that shoot. 

In hindsight, she knows she should have stopped and rested when she was unwell. Instead she went to the UK for work and flew back to Victoria via Los Angeles.

Yet, as Matterson tells McCabe, being committed is just part of the job.

“This industry attracts people who are very passionate, and they think that this is what they really want to do,” she said. 

“I’ve had people who we’ve given an opportunity to and when they’ve been in it, they’ve gone ‘Actually, this isn’t for me and I’m gonna go and do this instead’.”

Mattherson doesn’t say this to judge. It’s just the harsh reality of the work.

“It’s not for everyone. Your nervous system has to operate at a certain speed. You have to be able to take all the highs, all the lows. There’s a lot that goes into it,” she said. 

Asked by McCabe whether the experience with her health caused her to reflect deeply about what drives her, Matterson said it did not.

“I took that in my stride at the time, and was like, okay, that happened and now what’s next? What’s the next thing?” she said. 

Then in 2023 things changed. She welcomed her second child at 46 and had another health scare. 

“I think that is the first time in my life where I actually have said, ‘Okay, I have to be serious now. And I have to actually reflect on what I’m doing and the sacrifices and, and what’s worth it and what’s not,” she said. 

“And I really believe that in order to do this job, you have to sacrifice.”

She shared how when Made Up Stories worked on the Amazon series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, she was away from her family for five months.

“We shot all around, and for me, that was 100 per cent worth it,” she said.

“But there have been other things in my career, that I have sacrificed a lot for, that I now look back and reflect and go ‘Maybe that wasn’t worth it’. 

“But I think that comes with maturity, it comes with hindsight, eventually it will catch up to you.”

Image credit: Jodi Matterson