THE quiz champion who replaced Anne Hegerty on Beat The Chasers said he was stepping into “chilly shoes” and may one day soon ‘overtake’ her.
The Chase Australia star Issa Schultz replaced Anne on Beat The Chasers when she caught Covid and was not able to attend filming.
Issa, 38, dropped everything and flew from Brisbane to the UK within hours of getting the call to step in for the quizzing star known as The Governess.
“I got a last-minute call to step into The Governess’s cold and chilly shoes,” Issa told The Celeb Report’s TV Mag.
“What a delight. It was close to 1am Brisbane time – I’m a night owl and my Australian boss said to the UK bosses: ‘Just call him, he’ll be up.’ And then I was on the plane, I think it was close to 9am that very morning.
“As they say, the show must go on! I’d be foolish not to do it.”
Despite stepping into those ‘chilly shoes’, Anne encouraged Issa and sent him kind words before he hit the big stage.
“My fellow chasers were lovely and so welcoming. Anne was so supportive – she said: ‘Go for it Issa, I know you can do this’,” Issa revealed.
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“She’s been my colleague on The Chase Australia for seven years.”
Issa opened up on the natural competitive nature of all the Chasers, who outside of the TV show compete in quiz competitions around the world.
“Chasers want to win and be first. You want to be the best, that’s quizzing,” he revealed.
“In Australia they have national championships and I’m lucky to have taken it nine times, so there I’m feeling pretty confident about where I am compared to everyone else, but here I’m surrounded by people who, in some cases, are a lot better than I am.
“So you go from a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a pacific ocean.”
Issa added: “Paul is good and I’m pretty sure most of the time is better than I am.
“Anne, I’ve started to overtake in the world rankings.
“As much as I want to be world number one, it may happen, it may not, it’ll keep me interested for many years to come.”
Anne revealed she had Covid in a tweet and encouraged fans to still tune in to Beat the Chasers despite her absence.
“You should absolutely watch it, it will feature six SUPERB Chasers,” she wrote in March.
Speaking about her replacement, she said: “Issa is an actual Chaser and has already recorded BTC in Australia, so he knows what he’s doing.”
Issa, a bow-tie wearing quizzer, is known to both Anne and Mark ‘The Beast’ Labbett as they also appear on the Aussie edition of The Chase.
Though he’s lived in Australia since he was a child, Issa was born in the St Austell, Cornwall, moving to Queensland with his family in the 1980s.
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An eight-time winner of the Australian Quizzing Championships, he has also featured on the Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
You can read the full interview in TV Mag, available exclusively with The Celeb Report every Saturday.
