Urzila Carlson

Urzila Carlson is a South African-born New Zealand comedian and actress, known for her stand-up performances as well as her appearances on television programs in both New Zealand and Australia. Carlson is a regular panellist on 7 Days and both the Australian and New Zealand version of Have You Been Paying Attention? She was also a panellist on The Masked Singer Australia for the show's second and third seasons and a contestant on the second season of Taskmaster NZ. Urzila also played Fallon in the comedy film Kinda Pregnant alongside Amy Schumer and Brianne Howey.

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Early life and education

Urzila Carlson was born in 1976 at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Johannesburg. She grew up on the Ingwelala nature reserve next to Kruger National Park and has a brother and a sister. Her father was a violent alcoholic, and her parents separated when she was 6 or 7 years old.

Career

Carlson's first job was as a typesetter for a South African newspaper, which she did for 12 years. By the age of 24 she was "production manager for Africa's largest newspaper group with 13 newspapers and 6 magazines," and won awards for graphic design and photograph retouching.
She moved to New Zealand in 2006 and transitioned into comedy in 2008, when she was 32.
She has appeared on the Australian shows The Project, Studio 10, Spicks and Specks, Orange Is the New Brown, Have You Been Paying Attention?, Hughesy, We Have a Problem, and two seasons of The Masked Singer. She has also appeared on New Zealand shows 7 Days, Have You Been Paying Attention? and Super City.
Her stand-up routines include The Long Flight To Freedom. Carlson performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala from 2016 to 2018.
She released a memoir in 2016 called Rolling with the Punchlines.
In 2021, she was a contestant on the second series of Taskmaster New Zealand.
In 2022, she was a guest judge on Drag Race Down Under. Carlson appeared on the Australian season of Guy Montgomery's Guy Mont-Spelling Bee.

Recognition and awards

Carlson was nominated for the Helpmann Award for Best Comedy Performer in 2018.
In 2019, she appeared in Netflix's Comedians of the World. The same year, she was presented with the Rielly Comedy Award from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand for her contribution to New Zealand entertainment.
She won Best Female Comedian at the New Zealand Comedy Guild Awards six times.

Personal life

Carlson speaks English, Zulu, and Afrikaans. She emigrated to New Zealand from South Africa in 2006 after being subjected to a series of thefts, including her car being stolen, an armed robbery at work, and a break-in at her home in which she and her neighbours confronted the intruder with cricket bats. She became a New Zealand citizen in 2012 and renounced her South African citizenship.
Carlson is a lesbian, and came out to her mother when she was 24. She refers to herself as a "lesbiterian", a portmanteau of lesbian and Presbyterian. She married her partner, Julie, in 2014, and they have a son and a daughter together. In 2024, Carlson revealed that she and her wife had divorced.
In 2018, Carlson was named Australasian Ambassador of South African Tourism, representing the country as part of an ongoing campaign to encourage Australians, New Zealanders, and South African expatriates to visit the country.
As of 2019, she lives in Auckland.